A chipmunk's near death experience - a garden saga.

[Vinca]

Last year I planted ground cherries, one of my favorite things, in my totally fenced in garden and something managed to get in and munch the plants into oblivion. This year the same thing happened, but when I noticed the first couple of destroyed plants I threw some netting over the plants to try to save them. All looked okay until yesterday when I noticed the feasting on the plants had begun again. This morning I found the culprit nearly strangled to death in the netting. A very cute, very noisy, very unhappy chipmunk. Somehow I managed to snip him out of the netting with some scissors and he scampered away no worse for wear. The plants are another matter. I'm now trying a brand new experiment. I took the healthiest looking plants and put them in reusable grocery bags with soil and hung them off the darn fence. Let's see if Mr. Chipmunk can overcome that!

[Phoenix61]

1. Glad you saved the little guy. nt

[ret5hd]

2. You posted this 10 minutes ago. You should see Mr. Chipmunk in your cherry plants by now.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. I had the same problem with birds in my cherry tree.

About 10 years ago I planted a cherry tree in my yard - it's a Northstar, which grows tart cherries that are good for pies and jam. After a couple of years it got big enough to start producing a lot of cherries, but the birds would usually get to them before I could. So one summer I bought some netting and draped it over the tree, which worked for awhile - but one day I went out and found a small bird all tangled up in the netting. I managed to cut the bird loose, but after that I felt so guilty that I took the netting off and haven't used it since (and the tree is too big now to use it anyhow). So now maybe I can grab a few cherries off the lower branches if I get to them as soon as they ripen, and the birds get the rest. It's possible that chipmunks are eating them too, but I haven't observed that so far. Squirrels get the apples. Nature always bats last. I will be interested in hearing whether your grocery bag experiment works, but critters always seem to find a way.

[Vinca]

4. I scooped up all the netting and took it to the garage. I don't want a repeat performance of that.

The bags are about 3 ft. off the ground, so we'll have to wait and see. If it works the fence will be covered in bags next year.

[mahina]

5. Did you happen to see the Squirrel Obstacle Course?

Remember the Glitter Bomb Bait Package guy?
He was thinking about how to keep squirrels from raiding his bird feeder. Bird feeders, sequentially.
Hey it’s long but it’s great.

[Vinca]

7. Glad I can get ground cherries at the farmer's market. LOL.

[SharonClark]

6. Chipmunks and ground squirrels can climb

a fence to reach their goal. I have to plant a couple of tomato plants as sacrifices to the squinny gods.