Blood On The Corncobs Tonight.

[jdmidwest]

The garden was doing nice this spring, everything was going fine. Then the beans and peas got nipped off to the stems. I had to remove 9 rabbits to a new location.

Last few years, the squirrels had raided my corn patch and cleaned me out. Last year I killed a dozen squirrels off the corn patch and the neighbor got a few also.

This year, I erected a nice electric fence system last week because the corn was starting to mature. Friday I came home to find a half row was stripped clean during one day. Sunday, came in from Montauk and a weekend of fishing to find most of the rest of the corn ruined. Yesterday, I cut all of the stalks down, saved the remaining ears and scrap for bait and set the traps. Today, I caught the first squirrel and tomorrow night he will fry in hot grease.

[denjac]

Man thats too bad. Have you been bothered by the Japanese beatles? My son that lives 10 miles east of Nixa says they are all over his stuff.

[jdmidwest]

Man thats too bad. Have you been bothered by the Japanese beatles? My son that lives 10 miles east of Nixa says they are all over his stuff.

They were bad at the airport during the airshow, but have not seen any in the garden or at the farm.

[Gilly]

Whew......wasn't real sure where you were headed with that title.

[denjac]

Whew......wasn't real sure where you were headed with that title.

Lol! I thought it was going to be outhouses and sears cataloge story

[Thom]

J.D.:

I feel your pain. I have to fence any garden area at least 6' for the deer. I gave up on raising corn a few years back due to the squirrels and Racoons. They not only stripped it all off they would peel it back a few days before it was just right to pick and beat me to it the night before I was ready to harvest.

I have thinned the squirrels out several times but as soon as I get them relocated or harvested for the frying pan a new family and friends move in to take their place.

I started with a 5 foot fence and 2 years ago the deer jumped the fence and wiped out a whole row of KY pole beans in one night just before the first harvest was due.

GRRRRRRRR.

Denjack:

I had the plague of Japaneese beetles earlier and they were stripping lots of stuff. I sprayed heavily with Spectracide Triazocide with a fine mist top and bottom of foilage. There were literally hundreds of them that flew off when spraying but it is good for 2 month control. My son had sprayed his lawn and got his before or when the grubs hatched and he had no problem at all.

Of course after rain I did respray and have not seen any since.

[Quillback]

I don't even try and grow corn because of those darn racoons. The deer got into the garden earlier this year, didn't do a whole lot of damage, mainly ate some squash leaves and nipped at one of the tomato plants. Since then I have been hanging a sweaty t-shirt (I go on daily walks and sweat like crazy when it's hot and humin) every evening on the fence and the deer have not come back since I started doing that. But maybe they just haven't been around, hard to say.

The tomatoes have been coming in the last couple of weeks, they are earlier than usual, I guess because of the heat wave we had. So far the Japanese beetles have not been bad, there's a few but not as bad as last year.

[jdmidwest]

5 squirrels and counting now, they are going into the traps using the corn I cut off for bait. I have noticed a few new rabbits in the past few days and the beans are just starting to put on. Now the heat and dry weather is killing me.

I was mowing the other day and noticed a few japanese beetles and wondered where they were coming from. The neighbor had a grapevine covered with them and had just about stripped it clean. I got out the sevin and sprayed it for him to keep them out of my yard.

I have never had a problem with deer, coons are easy to trap, I have caught 5 around here in the past few years. Groundhogs have allways been a pain. If you have cobs with the ends eaten out of them, it is squirrels. If the stalks are broken, its coons or groundhogs.