Wanted

Somebody has been enjoying free meals from my garden. Uh, it's not offered.

These are just a part of it. My radish, parsley and oregano were wiped out. The seedlings of basil and tomatoes were left little wimpy sticks, no leaves, a day before they were transplanted to the garden. Even chives got chopped off. Somebody must have had a stinky breath.

The viola don't look welcoming anymore... The welcome sign shows it even more sad.

Here is the source of the problem. On the border of the property, a woodchuck has been living for years. This is Mama. She had three babies last spring. Olga told me that she had another three this spring.

Chuck, one of her kids born last spring, settled in our yard. He made his home under the side porch. His house got great access to my herb garden. Appearlantly, he knew real estate is location, location, location. A house with free meals. Perfect for a bachelor patch. Since then, he'd been eating out of my garden.

Unfortunately to me, he was not a picky eater. He tried everything. Eggplants and even one of the lemons got his bite marks on. I couldn't make any pesto because of him last year.

Mama has been eating in Shirley and Nana's garden. She ate their zucchini flowers. That has been a headache to them. No flowers, no zucchinis.

These little chubby gangster family is the most wanted in the neighborhood. A funny thing is it seems they have some sense of territories even in the family. I've never seen Mama is in our yard, and Chuck is around the border where Mama's house is.

I googled natural ways to deter them from the gardens. I spent quite while looking through bottles in the pest control product aisle at the hardware store. To me, it's fine they hang around in the yard as long as they don't eat out of the gardens. They are welcome to eat grass in the yard. There are some clover patches, too. They are supposed to like clovers. But, Chuck kept eating in the garden. I tried hot pepper flake based repellent. This was a waste of money. It did nothing. FYI, it doesn't work to squirrels either. Thus, my seek for effective ways to keep Chuck away from my garden continued.

One day, I saw a woodchuck was laying in front of the fire hydrant at the front yard. His legs were stretched out. He was not moving at all. He was dead. It seems he got a hit by a car. It didn't take long to find out that was Chuck. My garden hasn't gotten any damages since then. But, I was upset. I felt terrible that he had a such ending. I didn't like he was eating out of my garden, but I don't think he deserves ending his life by hit by a car. He deserves completing the cycle of his life just like anybody.

After Chuck was gone, my strawberries were getting bigger. Niel warned me that bunnies love berries. Sure, bunnies visits my yard, too. It turned out I didn't need to worry about bunnies at all. They were waiting the berries get ripe. On the other hand, squirrels didn't. They picked green berries one by one everyday to check if they were ready or not. They left the bitten green berries around the fountain. Now, all berries are gone. None of them made it to red. Busterds!

Now, raspberries are turning red. Marilyn has been enjoying them as we find deep red ones. Let's see how many berries end up in our bellies.