August 5 Column: Dealing with Small Critters

Gardening can sometimes be a challenge, can’t it? Maybe it’s the weather where you live, plants that occasionally don’t grow the way you expected, or perhaps it’s dealing with small critters that is really annoying.

Well, my garden column today is about that last item because I get a lot of questions about it and have learned a few tricks over the years. I’ve also done a bit of research on the problem animals that I don’t see in my own garden, with the idea of helping gardeners find some relief. Here’s a link to the column in today’s edition of The Spokesman-Review: Protecting your garden from critters.

For it, I focused on five commonly-seen critters: voles, gophers, squirrels, raccoons and rabbits (the top photo shows rabbit damage on tulip leaves… grrr). And I did my best to clarify the difference between voles and gophers because I know how confusing that can be: I talk about their physical differences, where they tend to live most of the time and the damage they cause.

I hope you’ll find this column helpful. I’m a little nervous, though: I know there are plenty more critters out there that can try your patience and/or raid your garden, so I’m fearing a whole bunch of questions about those animals will soon be coming my way! Turkeys and porcupines immediately come to mind. But if you have a question about them, I’ll do my best to find you an answer, even for those that I don’t have in my garden.

By the way, if you’re wondering why I didn’t discuss deer — which are certainly huge pests for gardeners all over the country — that’s because I wrote a column about it on May 27. Here’s a link to it: Tricks to keep your garden from becoming a deer smorgasbord.

Next up is this week’s “Everyone Can Grow a Garden” video. The topic is the August video tour of my vegetable garden. As I mention in the video, I’ve already done ones for June and July, so I’m trying to stick with this routine at least through September. I think it’s interesting to watch the metamorphosis of a garden, don’t you? Oh, and let me apologize right now for the wobbly camera work! I ordinarily use a tripod but for the tours, I feel it’s more important for you to see the veggies close up. So I opted for holding our video camera… with mixed results, I might add.