Groundhog war
The groundhog that casually scampered past me the other afternoon before disappearing under the back deck has wreaked havoc on parts of my garden that he finds tasty. First to go were three small sunflower plants, then the broccoli, chewed to stumps. Yesterday he demolished the cauliflower.
As if that weren't bad enough, it seems that he's climbed into my raised bed, and in the process of eating most of the lettuce has trampled the rest into the ground.
This has got to stop.
Yesterday I borrowed one of those live traps from a friend. It's basically a long wire box with a trigger plate near the back that will slam the door shut when the critter comes after the bait.
Yesterday I set it up with a chunk of purple cabbage as bait, figuring that this is a similar menu item to broccoli and cabbage. Today the trap was empty. Obviously a new strategy is called for.
Jared, the friend who loaned me the trap said that guys at work use jelly donuts as bait, so off to Dave's Market I went in search of the tastiest jelly donut they had.
I cut it into pieces and made a little trail into the trap, which I placed right in front of yesterday's snack, the cauliflower plants.
How could a groundhog resist a treat like this? Stay tuned for an answer tomorrow.
