OUTWITTING CRITTERS

continued from page 25 beginning to sprout.

From the vantage point of her backyard in Oak Ridge, Rachel Rees thinks the deer population may be growing.

“I think the deer are even more of a problem with all of the development” that’s destroying their habitat, she said. “If you have a vegetable garden, you’re going to have to fence it.”

A member of the Oak Ridge Garden Club, Rees uses several methods to deter deer, rabbits and a groundhog that she hopes doesn’t come back this year. She sprays repellents in the spring. To irritate the groundhog, Rees threw rose bush clippings and thorns down his hole.

Rees also found that stringing two strands of heavy fishing line – one knee high and the other chest high – around the perimeter of her property helps to keep deer out of her yard.

In the end, she acknowledged that winning the battle is hopeless. So she tends such a wide variety of plants –roses, peonies, phlox and hydrangeas, among them – that she suffers the loss of some to animals and still grows enough to enjoy for herself.

Last summer, Rees gave up planting vegetables due to the wild animals that frequently visited her yard.

“It cost so much to get it going, and I got nothing but frustration out of it,” she said. “I was down to trying to grow tomatoes and peppers near my deck, but I couldn’t even get those.”

In Stokesdale, Wayne Andrews gave up planting a spring garden except for potatoes due to varmints.

“There is such a problem with groundhogs, deer and rabbits that there’s a limit on what you can plant,” he said. “English peas, the deer eat them up. If you don’t use fencing or netting, you’re going to lose out.”

During the summer, Andrews tries to protect his tomatoes with wire cages.

To reduce the groundhog population, he uses a cage trap and disposes of the animals.

He’s also stopped planting summertime vegetables such as watermelons and cantaloupes, a favorite of deer and raccoons.

“Groundhogs will eat anything,” he noted.

“You can put a fence around the garden, but it’s a lot of trouble,” Andrews added. “If you put netting up, a lot of times groundhogs will find a way to get under it. Deer will find a way to get in.”

He also tries to distract deer from browsing in his garden by planting clover, buckwheat and cow peas elsewhere on his property.

“That helps a lot to draw them away,” he said.

In Summerfield, Beeson also uses cages baited with apples to trap groundhogs. He sets out the trap near an old tobacco barn where he parks his tractor. When he sees the varmints in his garden, he sets a trap between the rows.

Beeson said he caught more than a half dozen groundhogs last summer. Otherwise, he said, “they would have eaten everything.”

Bruce Petersen deters deer from his backyard gardens in Summerfield with a concoction recommended by gardening instructor Ellen Ashley, also of Summerfield. He mixes three gallons of water, eight egg yolks and three or four ounces of peppermint oil in a sprayer and applies it to his plants.

“It has a bad odor so it works, as long as you keep spraying,” Petersen said. “If you don’t, the deer will nibble off the new growth.”

for more info...

Search online for the wildlife chapter of the North Carolina Garden Extension Handbook for tips on deterring animals from eating and destroying your garden and lawn.

Raised-bed gardening is a popular option for many backyards. Not only are they space-efficient and allow users to put a garden practically anywhere, they also warm up more quickly in the spring – which provides a longer growing season – and drain better, allowing roots to breathe.

Early Garden Time

continued from page 15 mid-April, and possibly later, but vegetables such as potatoes, radishes, arugula and peas are usually hardy enough to withstand a final cold snap. Those are some of the vegetables Bruce Petersen has planted in the backyard of his Summerfield home.

“The arugula is showing, and the spinach is showing,” he said. “I’m just starting to see the peas.”

Earlier this year, Petersen started some of his vegetables from seeds, putting them in a sunny spot in his house. Others he’s starting as plants.

While Petersen and his wife, Bonnie, will be enjoying their early vegetables throughout the spring, he won’t harvest potatoes until the summer. He lets them grow until the vines on the ground die.

Safeguarding vegetable plants from deer, groundhogs and other critters is a requirement regardless of the season.

For Peeden, that meant planting his lettuce seeds in a raised bed, partially shielded by his compost pile and a roll of plastic fencing. He’s confident about his lettuce’s survival odds.

“I don’t think I’ll lose any because I’ve got it hidden,” he said. Just in case, though, he’s prepared to cover the lettuce with plastic fencing.

As spring rolls into summer, Peeden plans to take a casual approach to protecting his tomatoes and other vegetables favored by critters.

“I let them eat what they want and try to keep them out as much as I can,” he said.

Until then, he feels fortunate that some of his early vegetables are less susceptible to varmints. “They won’t eat the beets or the onions or the potatoes,” he said.

want more info?

Visit N.C. Cooperative Extension’s website, www.gardening.ces.ncsu.edu, where you’ll find an expansive amount of information on gardening, plant ID, beekeeping, lawn and garden maintenance, pest management and more.