The Battle for Cucumber Hill

Owl2


In the blazing August heat, the fight for my square foot garden rages on.  Wave after wave of chipmunks, moles, rabbits and woodchucks have assaulted the fortified chicken wire and we've held on, but for how much longer?  My losses are stacking up - the shredded remains of my pumpkin plants, pepper plants, broccoli, green beans and pea plants will simply not live to produce again.  Painfully, this is my 2nd planting of cucumber plants - the 1st set was completely eaten down to stubs! 

I just caught a chipmunk scaling the chicken wire, but I can't be there to police everything all the time.  Tactics I've tried so far include the famed plastic owl deterrent, the hot pepper-based deterrent that you spread around the border of your garden, and the solar-powered electronic spike that makes noise to scare moles away.  Have you any other suggestions I can throw at it, short of assigning an armed guard with a bb-gun?

It is an understatement that this year has been a difficult one for gardening.  As if the Spring wasn't insulting enough with its near-record rains, the critters and Summer heat are in full swing.  On the plus side, I rescued all my tomato plants from blight, so there should be a nice crop of big red tomatoes in the coming week.  All is not lost, but the battle continues.  Does Mr. plastic owl look pissed to you?  He should be.