Kale question... >>morphed into groundHOG and quinoa talk

[rainbowgardener]

Definitely groundhog! Even without any description of the animal, I recognize the damage, plants chewed down from the top, leaving little stem nubs. You would rarely see gophers, which tunnel underground, but the groundhog (though she lives in an underground burrow) walks boldly around your garden.

I had a resident groundhog who chewed down lots of things in my garden until we got a dog!

[cdog222]

Yep - I purchased them through wildgardenseed.com. I picked up a few other odds and ends with the quinoa seeds, and have been very pleased with everything.

I still have not caught the groundhog that made short work of my quinoa, but I also haven't seen any signs of him for over a week. I left all of the quinoa 'stumps' that he left after eating all of the seed heads, and while the stumps didn't do much at first, they are finally starting to push out new leaves and some small side shoots with little seed heads. I had plans for the space that it is currently occupying, but it's not that pressing so I am going to let them do their thing and see if I can't get at least a tiny little harvest. I know that 'waiting until next year' comes with gardening, but sometimes I just don't want to wait!

[LeVin]

Groundhogs do not venture far from their hole - I've heard less than 50 yards from their den, so their browsing areas remains pretty much the same, and they can be seen again and again as long as there is food and no threat. Over the years, I've made a point of chasing down every single groundhog in my property. Most of the times they just run over or under the fence, sometimes they meet an unfortunate early end. However, they are bold and fond of the foods we grow, so they'll venture out when there is no human activity within the house. Trying traps right now, though nothing but some squirrels have fallen for that one so far. I may have to simple entrench the entire gardening area with an overly complicated fencing system that'll take a lot of hours of work and make gardening more difficult.

[rainbowgardener]

Since I garden in raised beds, it is easy to wrap individual beds in deer netting or plastic fencing. I still do. Even though the groundhog stays away now that we have a dog, the raccoons are still here and will face down a dog any day. So the gardens are still wrapped.