During my last 3 years of retirement I have been trying hard to become a gardener. But a visiting groundhog eats everything before I can. Lettuce, cabbage, broccoli etc, he even seems to take one bite from every tomato on the vines and so ruins every fruit. We even put wire fences around the vegetables - down into the soil - to no avail. I am going to try containers this year - but I doubt that will work. Anyone out there like a groundhog ? Please tell me what I can do to send him on his way ?
Is hunting legal where you have the garden? We used to shoot groundhogs in rural Missouri when they were a problem.
In the country you can shoot them but not where I live - in the city. Besides, he may be eating me out of house & home but I don't have a gun and I couldn't for the life of me end his life. Call me stupid, but I need a humane deterrent.
Reading a bit about them, it sounds like they are not easy to discourage or repel from the garden. I think you might want to hire a pest control company to trap and remove it (them?). You could trap it yourself, but what are you going to do with it. Not sure if it will be easy to find someone who will trap it and remove it to the wild though. Might want to check with neighbors to see how far the problem goes and maybe someone would share the cost of a pest service.
