Defensive
One sad morning last week I came outside to find that the damn groundhog had eaten all the blossoms on the peas that had begun to crawl up their strings. That was bad enough, but in the process he (she?) had broken many of the stems themselves.
As for the three broccoli plants that had survived out of the six I planted, he'd chewed them nearly down to the ground.
My response has been to use nearly 50 feet of wire mesh fencing to surround the peas, some of the tomatoes, and the best of the eggplants. I'll see what happens next. Might be worth sacrificing a few of the smaller plants to keep the big ones healthy.
Truth is the fencing is mostly a deterrent anyway. I'm sure that a groundhog is strong enough to pull aside or dig under the steel mesh. I'm just hoping he finds it annoying enough to go off in search of other things to eat.
