A big THANK YOU for the "bucket of death" idea!!!! I have lost a season's worth of strawberries (wouldn't have hurt so much if they hadn't taken just a couple of bites and gone on to the next berry and even ate the green ones); I probably don't need to include the holes there. I thought our drought conditions were hurting a lovely Korean Spice Bush; odd, the other plants are doing well. Since every place else in the bed is open ground, under the bush things are hidden, so I looked and yup, there was a hole. Have been seeing a chipper for a while but never connected it to tree damage. And have been weeding and finding only the outer skins of crocus and hardly any larger ones. And my little fritilaries are down to three. That HURTS! The last straw was hearing noises from the air vents. I live in a mobile home with the skirting insulated. The little buggers are getting in somewhere. When my cats sit at the vents for an hour they are either listening for mice and apparently chipmunks. It wouldn't take them much to get inside here from underneath. I tried snap traps but kept catching birds hungry because of the drought. SO: went out and bought me a bucket and some seed and made me a "bucket of death". And guess what? Caught one first night! I noticed that there were a few spaces in the floating seeds; that's a good indication of a dead chipper. I also checked along the back of my home where the ground meets the concrete slab and behold, a hole under the stairs (in the general direction of said noises). Took a waste basket and did the "bucket" thing again. I used a 2x6" board for the one out front; stuck a few seeds onto the end with PB but those weren't touched. Out back I just put a few seeds on a step. Haven't checked that one yet though. Weather will soon be turning cold and I don't want to share my home with these destructive critters, not to mention their fleas and ticks and diseases.

About four years ago the chipmunks started doing the same to my tomatoes. Left water for them, didn't matter. Hardware cloth around my entire tomato patch (top and sides) would look hideous so I took to putting a baggie on the tomatoes just as they started to ripen. Somewhat of a PITA but it worked well. Thankfully they didn't bother the cherry tomatoes. I am determine there will be fewer rodents around this year. tj

We have a Havahart trap. It's hard to tell how many chipmunks you have but one summer I noticed that they had gnawed 2 holes in my mahogany deck. This wood is dearly expensive and I bought the trap to catch the little critters. I was absolutely shocked to catch 26 chipmunks in about 3 months. After the first 5 or so I stopped baiting the trap but I put it alongside the house where I knew they ran. Chipmunks usually eat nuts, grains and berries. But they also like the tender shoots of plants and some leaves. And apparently my hardwood deck.

I remember when I was first gardening I tried the chicken mesh thing - laid it down in the fall after planting. Don’t know what I was thinking but by next spring I wanted to remove it after the shoots had already started pushing through and I ended up pulling out a good deal of my precious while doing so. So not really good for my purposes. The other thing is that the mesh may stop them being able to dig down to the bulb - but doesn’t stop the buggers from snapping the neck of the flower just as it about to open.