The city is full of squirrels, and there are few predators to keep them under control. The salad table on the front porch is a good spot to grow greens, as long as I can keep the squirrels from digging holes, throwing the dirt on the ground, and tearing the baby plants up by the roots. Bird netting was added to the squirrel "cages", which cover the flats where the new plant starts were planted today. The one set of flats is now planted with tah tsoi, swiss chard, and mizuna...
That looks extremely effective! When I lived in Pacific climates I had fox and gray squirrels but they were content with oaks full of acorns. It was the deer that ate everything out of the vegetable garden.
ReplyDeleteHere in the desert we have ground squirrels (because no trees), specifically the Arizona rock squirrel which is up to 2 lbs! I put up some wimpy plastic bird netting over my vegetable beds and the gigantic beast just sat on it while contentedly eating everything in sight. I let my dogs run through the garden area to scare away the squirrels, but the dogs like vegetables too and started pulling peas off the vines. So it's back to building a mesh cage of some sort for bird and squirrel protection. Thank you for the illustration.