Invaders!

Yardslave 5/4/2021, 11:22 am

This morning I went out to my SFG beds to harvest some long-awaited beets. I have been having problems with my beds. My beds are arraigned on a slight incline, with one end of the bed slightly buried int the high side of the soil, to keep the beds level. The moles broke through a weathered 2" thick redwood sidewall on my raised bed, avoiding the hardware cloth lining intended to keep gophers, voles, and moles out. The moles harvested the worms in the beds and mined the entire bed, leaving a tilled bed and peppere plants that fell over from being loosened. Now the gophers are following up and despite my trapping are now feasting on the beets and carrots. I was ready to put in the tomatoes, chard, and broccoli, but I might have to either pull the beds and wire the sides up, or put everything in baskets until I can figure out a solution. Evil or Very Mad

OhioGardener 5/4/2021, 11:37 am

Such devastation! I hate to see that! My raised beds are metal, so the critters can't get through the sides. When I put the first bed in a number of years ago the gophers burrowed up into the beds and did unbelievable damage. I had to remove all the soil, move the bed, and put down 1/2" hardware cloth, and then re-install the bed and fill it. Since then, all of my beds are on the 1/2" hardware cloth. But, the night before last some critter dug down through the wood chips surrounding the beds to try to get into the bed. Fortunately, it hit the hardware cloth and couldn't go any further. The entire length of the bed the wood chips were pulled away from the side of the bed down to the wire.


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Invaders!

Invaders!

Re: Invaders!