.........and the green grass grew all around and around..........and the green grass grew all around! This is one of the children's songs that the "Little Terrorists" play while dancing around the toy room. Unfortunately it also describes a recent problem that I am battling in my orchid house.
With the coming of fall some clever creature has discovered the warmth within. The first sign that something was amiss was some succulent starts that I mixed cottonseed meal into the potting mix, evidently it is also a tasty treat for what is tunneling its way in. I went to the greenhouse to water in the morning and found over half the succulent starts dug out and laying on the potting bench. I re potted and looked around and discovered its entrance. I scooped all the soil up and filled the hole back in tamping the soil down hard both inside the greenhouse as well as outside. This has been going on for about four days and each day the hole gets dug out again.
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| Large enough hole that cool air just billows through |
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| The locking bait box to the right evidently has to narrow of entrance and the small live trap is found sprung but no occupant. |
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| No.... the little round red thing is not a land mine, its just a weight that I had on the top of the useless box trap......but that might be an idea. |
These last three pictures are what greeted me yesterday morning after I thought I had filled it in for the last time and placing brick on the outside. This time I removed the debris and filled everything in with rock. Upon my entrance this morning there was no sign of debris, everything as I had left it......I'm not holding my breath!
With the coming of fall some clever creature has discovered the warmth within. The first sign that something was amiss was some succulent starts that I mixed cottonseed meal into the potting mix, evidently it is also a tasty treat for what is tunneling its way in. I went to the greenhouse to water in the morning and found over half the succulent starts dug out and laying on the potting bench. I re potted and looked around and discovered its entrance. I scooped all the soil up and filled the hole back in tamping the soil down hard both inside the greenhouse as well as outside. This has been going on for about four days and each day the hole gets dug out again.
Oh oh! I hope you solve the mystery of the clever critter!
ReplyDeleteHi Holly,
ReplyDeleteYes, I am thinking a bigger box trap. I have four different sizes but then this critter seems pretty smart.
hope this solved the problem...I had critters who dug up into my garden in Arizona...ground squirrels who had miles of tunnels under the cement pad which held my shed. My garden was at one end of the cement and they just naturally had to dig upwards into my flower/vegetable garden for eating purposes. There were so many burrowing upwards there was no way I could win...but I did try! I wish you every success, one works hard on their gardening...so it's difficult to watch it destroyed by critters...even though they're only doing what comes natural!
ReplyDeleteI hope you solved your problem, Doc.
ReplyDeleteI was going to suggest burying fencing or tin as you do to keep varmints out of the coop. Hopefully whatever it is will move somewhere else rather than dig through your rocks!