The cucumber beetle invasion has started

[Chuck]

The squirrels here and I have an unwritten agreement that I let my eat all the walnuts, chestnuts and butternuts they like as well as access to the bird feeders in spring and fall and they in part stay the heck out of my garden lol. We don't have possums here.. I thought they eat big bugs and stuff but I have no idea... It's the sharp teeth that made me think that. Are they hard on the garden? Here groundhogs and the odd rabbit are the biggest rodent problems. Skunks, raccoons if you grow something they want to eat or dig up.

Possums are a garbage disposal. They will eat anything from live chickens to rotten hog intestines to any kind of vegetable. I guess that is why they are so stupid and slow. If they were as smart as coons we gardeners would be in big trouble.

 

[pepper]

Possums are a garbage disposal. They will eat anything from live chickens to rotten hog intestines to any kind of vegetable. I guess that is why they are so stupid and slow. If they were as smart as coons we gardeners would be in big trouble.

Lol they do seem kind of stupid from what I've seen in videos!

Since we are off topic a bit I just found this growing on some tree that I missed when cutting brush. Ever seen it before? Not so much the tree but this strange leaf growth.

 

[Eeilee]

Possums are a garbage disposal. They will eat anything from live chickens to rotten hog intestines to any kind of vegetable. I guess that is why they are so stupid and slow. If they were as smart as coons we gardeners would be in big trouble.

And they smell as bad as their diet.
Here they also carry disease .

 

[Eeilee]

Lol they do seem kind of stupid from what I've seen in videos!

Since we are off topic a bit I just found this growing on some tree that I missed when cutting brush. Ever seen it before? Not so much the tree but this strange leaf growth.
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What on earth. Have aliens landed on your property recently lol

 

[Chuck]

Lol they do seem kind of stupid from what I've seen in videos!

Since we are off topic a bit I just found this growing on some tree that I missed when cutting brush. Ever seen it before? Not so much the tree but this strange leaf growth.
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I've never seen it before. What kind of tree is it growing on? If we know this perhaps we can find out what it is.

 

[pepper]

I've never seen it before. What kind of tree is it growing on? If we know this perhaps we can find out what it is.

My guess is some kind of cherry but I don't know. The flocks of birds come in my yard and crap everywhere and these strange trees grow lol. I have seen it before but no idea what it is. Looks like alien pods lol

 

[Chuck]

My guess is some kind of cherry but I don't know. The flocks of birds come in my yard and crap everywhere and these strange trees grow lol. I have seen it before but no idea what it is. Looks like alien pods lol

Is it growing out of the leaf or is it growing on the leaf.

 

[pepper]

Is it growing out of the leaf or is it growing on the leaf.

Out of, that is the strange part. It is part of the leaf.

 

[pepper]

A closer look

 

[pepper]

Tomorrow I will pull one off and scrape it to put under the microscope. I should be able to tell if it's fungi or bugs.

 

[pepper]

I've never seen it before. What kind of tree is it growing on? If we know this perhaps we can find out what it is.

I was battling an epic hangover yesterday so I didn't get a chance to check that under the microscope lol. But I did some research and it's called spindle galls. Caused by microscopic mites, they are too small to do any harm to a tree thankfully.

 

[Heirloom farmer1969]

It's literally impossible for me. They break down the stocks and eat the head before the moment it starts to look like a head of corn. I would have to grow a lot of corn stocks just to maybe get enough to eat that they don't destroy. Kind of pointless when I can buy local peaches and cream corn from the local farmers for pocket change lol. It's really cheap so I don't bother.


I don't like owning pets so a dog is out of the question, I would love to unload my winchester on them but the cops would be at my door before i could count to 10 lol.

Aside from the corn the cucumber beetles are just bad here, it's on Ontario thing I gu

It's literally impossible for me. They break down the stocks and eat the head before the moment it starts to look like a head of corn. I would have to grow a lot of corn stocks just to maybe get enough to eat that they don't destroy. Kind of pointless when I can buy local peaches and cream corn from the local farmers for pocket change lol. It's really cheap so I don't bother.


I don't like owning pets so a dog is out of the question, I would love to unload my winchester on them but the cops would be at my door before i could count to 10 lol.

Aside from the corn the cucumber beetles are just bad here, it's an Ontario thing, I guess.

When I was a kid helping my parents in the fields, I remember every year when the corn would about be ready to pick, the coons would always beat us. Finally, I think it was the spring of 1996; my father invested in an electric fence. I've not had a problem with raccoons in my corn since. Here in the mountains of eastern Ky, it would be impossible to grow anything these days without an electric fence because they are so many deer and rabbits. A. Neighbor planted a few short rows of white half-runner beans last year, and soon as they no more came up, the deer mowed them down.

 

[pepper]

When I was a kid helping my parents in the fields, I remember every year when the corn would about be ready to pick, the coons would always beat us. Finally, I think it was the spring of 1996; my father invested in an electric fence. I've not had a problem with raccoons in my corn since. Here in the mountains of eastern Ky, it would be impossible to grow anything these days without an electric fence because they are so many deer and rabbits. A. Neighbor planted a few short rows of white half-runner beans last year, and soon as they no more came up, the deer mowed them down.

An electric fence is a great idea! The kind that runs off of a car battery would work fine.

 

[smitty55]

Off topic but with all this talk about coons and corn I figured I'd add my solution to dealing with the buggers. I found it doing some online research many years back. Yea the .22 worked but since they're mostly nocturnal it's not easy to get a bead on them. This method I can attest works awesome, they rarely go more than 10 feet and often less than 5 feet. After talking to a farmer up the road it turns out that it was common knowledge for him after incidentally discovering it while using it for it's intended purpose in his barns. I have never seen anything else touch it but coons and for some strange reason they love it and it works real fast. So without getting into it I'll just leave this link to the original article I found a decade ago. https://conservativepoliticalforum....to-kill-a-raccoon-that's-raiding-your-garden/
Cheers

 

[pepper]

Off topic but with all this talk about coons and corn I figured I'd add my solution to dealing with the buggers. I found it doing some online research many years back. Yea the .22 worked but since they're mostly nocturnal it's not easy to get a bead on them. This method I can attest works awesome, they rarely go more than 10 feet and often less than 5 feet. After talking to a farmer up the road it turns out that it was common knowledge for him after incidentally discovering it while using it for it's intended purpose in his barns. I have never seen anything else touch it but coons and for some strange reason they love it and it works real fast. So without getting into it I'll just leave this link to the original article I found a decade ago.

I am curious what it is? But what I do know is that because I live on the very edge of city limits and have restaurants, food trucks, and people living on the front side of me and endless miles of nature on the left it would be impossible to control them. Especially when you have people like this living all around you. I am not knocking him, I get a kick out of his videos and respect he is enjoying the racoons and millions of people are enjoying watching him enjoy it. But so many people do this around here it's not just a few racoons.