Wildlife

Hello, friends. It’s been a busy week in the garden! We’ve had a ton of rain and the vegetables are going berserk. The only catch is that so far, we’ve eaten almost none of what we’ve grown. The reason? There’s a family of groundhogs living at the back of our garden. We thought they were awfully cute in the early spring, when the babies were small and they ate mostly clover.

We think there are four or five, although short of tagging them (Nick suggested colour-coded bow ties) we can’t know for sure. But WOW, groundhogs eat a lot! They soon tired of clover and made their way through our kale, pak choy, green beans, snow peas, and strawberries. We seldom catch them in the act (although one of the babies tried to enter the house through our screen door). We tried blocking their main burrow entrance (they always have a few alternative exits), sprinkling noxious odours (tea trea oil, urine) around the hole, loud noises, etc. And yet they persisted.

This week, we borrowed a trap from a neighbour. He’s caught four or five so far this year, and relocated them to a local conservation area. He was keen to show us his way. So we baited the trap with broccoli and set it out overnight. In the morning…

This baby raccoon was too curious for his own good. Raccoons are a minor urban pest but they don’t eat our vegetables, so I let this guy go. I baited the trap again and we went out for the day.

AND LOOK!

Nick took this fellow out for a drive and released him. And the next day, we harvested some green beans. We’re going to keep baiting the trap and hoping for the best. Because we are veghogs.