Rodent Wars

He wasn't kidding when OilMan said he loved 'digging in the dirt'.  Foiled by the ground squirrels who have eaten all the peppers, parsley, basil and lettuce he planted there, he  has decided to dig out all the dirt and line the bottom with wire mesh,   Our friend Dan is building 'cages', for want of a better word, which will fit inside this bed and have a door that opens to provide access to the plants.  I had saved an article from Sunset Magazine about Olympic swimmer Natalie Coughlin's garden on a very hilly lot in the Bay Area, an OilMan decided it would combine his desire to protect the plants from the ground squirrels and MY desire that it not be ugly!

This is a new rodent for OilMan.He has spent a lot of time cementing in the spaces where rats could get under the house, but these guys dig big tunnels everywhere. (A few sulphur bombs have been lit as well....) He trapped gophers when we had the house in Sebastopol. He planted everything here in baskets to keep the voles away from the roots. We have strategically placed umbrellas, shade cloth cloth and bird and insect netting. We never had ground squirrels until a couple of years ago The working theory is that they are refugees from the fire which burned all their habitat right above us.

They are brazen. They sit on the edge of the deck underneath the bird feeders picking the leaves off the shrubs and eating them.  Too bad we can't harness all that tunneling energy to dig holes for plants in our rock and clay soil, which we find almost impossible to dig holes in....It certainly doesn't seem to phase them.