Huge surprise in the garden

Thu Feb 23, 2012 2:56 am

Earlier today I was looking around the garden and just checking plants. I was looking at a Sunflower plant and something jumped out that looked like a rat or mouse. It startled me and I jumped back. But then I caught a glimpse of it before it ran off into the bushes.

Last Spring I caught a bunch of tadpoles and put them in my pond. During the summer almost daily I was seeing little toads sitting up on the water hyacinth. So I would take them and set them loose in my garden.

I never knew if they made it but I hoped they did. After today I am sure the toad I saw was one of the toads I let go. I let them go when they were about the size of your thumbnail now the toad has a mass about the size of my palm. I am pretty happy that it made it and is still around. Just hoping it stays around. I was thinking about putting little containers with water around the garden so it can keep cool when it needs to.

Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:23 am

Lucky you! I hear they like slugs among other pests. :twisted:

We have a resident toad that seems to come back every year -- just how long is their life span anyway? But the thing sets up house in the driveway each time, so it's no help to my garden. :roll:

Thu Feb 23, 2012 3:57 am

When the Toad took off I can see a spot where it was sorta burrowed into. It was in the moist dirty right by some Sunflowers.

Thu Feb 23, 2012 4:02 am

Hey that's interesting. So do you think it just came out of hibernation?

One year, we had a painted box turtle that hibernated in my veg garden. I thought it was really interesting that the spring day it came out of its burrow coincided with when it was perfect or planting seed potatoes.

Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:51 am

I find toads usually in wood chips and put the toads in my garden all the time!

Thu Feb 23, 2012 5:54 am

Cool PR !! Toad/frogs are an asset to the garden. Hop eit does stay around !!

T

Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:07 pm

That is a cool story. I think toads are good for the garden because they eat bugs. If I see a toad I leave it along, I'm not sure what it takes to attract toads or make them stay.

We have tiny barking tree frogs in TN. They sound like a childs party horn. It is a little bit funny to be in the garden and get BLASTED by a LOUD horn sound it always scares the heck out of me.

I think all toads and frogs are good for the garden.

Fri Feb 24, 2012 6:21 pm

Usually if you have a pond it will attract toads and frogs. The pond I have is not your usual pond though. Mine is a mini pond made out of a 55 gallon rubbermaid. And it is elevated so toads can't get in and they also can't get out. Once the tadpoles I got turned to toads I had to get them out so they could be free.

The toads I got are local to the area too. And the thing with toads is they do not need water as much as frogs do. Their skin can dry out a little, but they do need to keep cool and have a shady spot to hide. What I read about these toads is they are nocturnal too, but I don't know if that is true for all toads.

Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:41 pm

I've stumbled on toads in the garden before, too. It definitely gives you a start!

My biggest surprise, though, came a couple years ago in my garden when I went to check my live trap that I use for my "chipmunk relocation program" and instead of finding a chipmunk found a least weasel in the cage. :shock:

Cool little predator - and an explanation for why I hadn't been catching very many chipmunks around that time. :wink:

That thing was spitting mad & I was almost too scared of it to free it from the trap. I finally put on heavy leather gloves & poised myself to run before letting it go! I was convinced it was going to whirl around and tear into me to get even. :lol:

Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:25 pm

Wow, that's a cool story!

One never knows what critters one will find in the garden!

Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:43 pm

I caught a racoon like that and they are really bad news!

Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:50 pm

PunkRotten wrote:Usually if you have a pond it will attract toads and frogs. The pond I have is not your usual pond though. Mine is a mini pond made out of a 55 gallon rubbermaid. And it is elevated so toads can't get in and they also can't get out. Once the tadpoles I got turned to toads I had to get them out so they could be free.

The toads I got are local to the area too. And the thing with toads is they do not need water as much as frogs do. Their skin can dry out a little, but they do need to keep cool and have a shady spot to hide. What I read about these toads is they are nocturnal too, but I don't know if that is true for all toads.

Toads are in my garden but I never see them. If I did a hole 6" deep with straight up sides a toad can not get out. Every morning there will be 1 to 4 toads in the hole. These are small 1" long toads. I release the toads and the next day more toads in the hole. I got to wondering if the same toads are in the hole so I dug several more holes is different places. Next morning I had 11 toads in the holes. Next I dug an ditch about 6 ft long sides straight up like the holes next morning 7 toads in the ditch and 9 toads in the holes. Released the toads next moring I caught 21 toads. Those little 1" toads can not jump out of a 6" deep hole. I never see toads during the day I don't know where they hide during the day. It is funny toads are too stupid not to jump in a hole.