Blasted Racoons

[Retrograde]

Last evening I had a beautiful Savoy cabbage. It was near perfect: full, dense head, lovely ruffled dark green outer leaves. I should have taken a picture: this morning I found something had taken several large bites out of the inner head. From the size, I suspect a raccoon or three. I know they're in the neighborhood - during the rainy season the back porch was covered in muddy raccoon prints, and Mr. Retrograde once saw one in the house in search of cat food.

Any tips for keeping the varmints away from my veggies, short of caging everything? I live in an older, fairly dense neighborhood, for what its worth.

[Raven]

1. The only thing I can think of is a dog. I have two and they seem to

keep everything away, at least so far. Someone here suggested hot pepper and I've heard about hanging bars of soap around the garden. I live way out in the country and have deer in my backyard regularly but they don't venture close to the house or the garden because of the dogs.

[ThomWV]

2. I sort of agree and the importance of shots.

I agree that dogs can be effective in keeping unwanted wildlife away from your place but I warn you, we've had dogs torn up by both raccoons and ground hogs. At the same time I say that I recall a particularly large female 'coon that took to eating up dog food we kept out on a side porch for the outdoor dogs. The dogs would just lay there and watch it eat. I took a broom to it a few times but it was getting more and more aggressive over time. Finally my wife got fed up with it when it bit one of the dogs and shot it.

At any rate the real point is this, if you have problems with wildlife and you have dogs please do this one thing, keep your dog's rabies shots up to date.

[noamnety]

3. I feel for you.

I looked out the window this morning to admire my fenced in raised bed garden - only to see a rabbit sitting in the middle of one of the beds inspecting the okra seedlings.

I have some of the animal favorites covered in bird netting - you might want to try that. A pvc dome with netting thrown over it and weighted down with boards along the bottom might be the nonviolent answer - you just need to make sure that if things need pollinating you handle that in some way.