More Garden Pests

Rural Ways is thankful for all the cheap food provided by Big Agriculture. If we had to feed ourselves, there would be some lean years. This season, in fact, has not been a good one in the garden, and the orchard is almost completely bare. One bright spot, however, was the sweet corn. It was looking like we were going to a have a decent harvest. Decent, that is, until the raccoons or skunks found the corn. For the last two nights, the little marauders have been shredding a dozen ears per night. They destroy the plants, shuck the ears, and take a few bites before moving on to the next one.

What are we going to do? Shooting, trapping, poisoning, fencing, and dynamiting have each been discussed. Raccoons are vicious, rabies-infested pests in the best of cases, and eliminating them would be desirable, but they are also probably smarter than anyone at Rural Ways and more than likely to win that war. Skunks aren't quite as criminal, but who wants to risk causing them any undue alarm? "Shoo, nice skunk, shoo."

It is probably a lost cause, but I did read one internet post that suggested wrapping the developing ears in strapping tape. I'm not convinced that tape will thwart the little buggers, but it is probably the only thing we can try right now. As for next year, traps, electrified fences, guard towers, and moats are in the engineering phase.