GARDEN PESTS . . . AGAIN! - May 2014

Well, we have done well with the sheep recently - they haven't been into the garden for several weeks now - even months maybe. The goats have gone back up the mountain to spend summer there. So the plants and flowers are starting to thrive!

. . . Or so we thought . . .

Every morning I get up to find my newly potted plants scattered around having been pulled up by the roots.

The work of goats? . . . No! 

Sheep? . . .No! . . . 

Birds? . . . No! 

Slugs? . . . No!

It's the work of squirrels which can be found foraging endlessly around the garden looking for bulbs to eat. I guess they have been uprooting my plants in search of bulbs. 

  

 

 

So the only plants which are left alone by the sheep & goats - bulb plants, are now being attacked by squirrels. 

So I have started collecting old barbecue grids or any other suitable object as a deterrent. Doesn't do much for appearance though! 

 

 

I have rejected the idea of using squirrel traps, but then yesterday I made a really sad discovery - my prize poppy which had been growing unexpectedly well, and was due to bloom in the next week or two, had lost its head. Some time later I discovered the head a few metres away. Clearly the work of those pesky squirrels having mistaken it for a nut?

 

They even appear to have tried framing my Welsh rugby supporter gnome!! 

Each morning I find him face down as if he's had a night on the town following a Wales-England rugby match. The squirrels are clearly hoping that he is the prime suspect, having destroyed the plants during a drunken binge. 

 

They push him to the ground in an attempt to reach the window bird feeder which is supposed to be inaccessible to squirrels, 5ft high on a wide pane of glass. Pah - no deterrent - they manage it easily & leave their muddy footprints up the glass. 

We have filled an old CD rack with fat balls - for the birds but our uninvited visitors help themselves and run off with whole fat balls. 

Maybe squirrel traps aren't such a bad idea after all!  

But as disastrous as it all sounds, to put things into perspective, our neighbours lost 9 of their chickens to the fox last night. and earlier in the year it deprived the farmer of 21 of his lambs. Now there's an unwelcome visitor if ever there was one which we haven't had the privilege of meeting . . . YET!

P.S. Guess who was back in the garden this morning? . . .

Where's that fox when you need him?

Next blog ... The very trusting Welsh folk