Mystery Garden Critter

[AZRedhawk44]

Yeah, I'll step up to rat traps.

I'll also plant mint around the periphery of my garden, I think.  It's supposedly good for repelling some mice species and some ants as well.

[Chuck Dye]

Check out the invasive nature of mint.  I talked with experienced gardener friends about getting mint going for bar tending, Thai, Greek, and Middle Eastern cooking.  Caused quite an uproar.  I was warned to plant only in containers that would not allow spreading.  This in Oregon where we have square miles of the stuff growing for the extract and flavoring industry.

[Harold Tuttle]

chipies & squirrels are not active at night
unless you have zombie chipmunks

I'm thinking voles

[erictank]

Check out the invasive nature of mint.  I talked with experienced gardener friends about getting mint going for bar tending, Thai, Greek, and Middle Eastern cooking.  Caused quite an uproar.  I was warned to plant only in containers that would not allow spreading.  This in Oregon where we have square miles of the stuff growing for the extract and flavoring industry.

Oh my dear and fluffy lord, yes!  The people we bought our house from planted mint in a couple of outdoor garden beds.  My wife and I both have black thumbs and little interest in spending time gardening.  When I finally got around to working clearing out leaves and stuff from one of the beds a couple months ago, the mint was EVERY-FREAKING-WHERE.

Tempting to go at it with a flamethrower - and hey, the smoke would smell nice, too!

Think I've got it mostly under control now, but I swear, it's worse than grape hyacinths (our nemesis at our old townhouse).

[zxcvbob]

Try getting rid of Creeping Charlie sometime (Glechoma hederacea, for professor Tuttle).  It runs along the ground and crowds out the grass and pretty much everything else, and it just laughs at 2,4-d.

Horseradish is another plant that you better make sure you really want before you plant it, cuz it will be there forever.

[RoadKingLarry]

it just laughs at 2,4-d

That's why they make glyphosate (active ingredient of Round Up).
Which happens to be my absolute favorite gardening tool.
 

Burn it down with glyphosate, replant with what ever you want.

[MechAg94]

You could do like some of the local NewAgers used to do, and leave notes in the garden asking the mice not to eat your plants 

Yeah, but you better leave some children's spelling books and picture books also because they probably can't read.

[zxcvbob]

You could do like some of the local NewAgers used to do, and leave notes in the garden asking the mice not to eat your plants 

Yeah, but you better leave some children's spelling books and picture books also because they probably can't read.

Just don't give him a cookie.

[AZRedhawk44]

Update:

Didn't plant mint, after being warned off due to its invasive nature... though I wonder if it would invade my garden.  My raised bed is 8" above the rest of the yard ground level, and I was planning on planting it outside of the raised bed.  It's just bare earth, and it would end up drinking whatever water made it from the garden's irrigation system into the ground around the garden.  I wouldn't deliberately water it otherwise.  Should keep it starved, and otherwise unable to climb back into the garden.

I got 1/4" hardware cloth.  Put it around the perimeter.  Seems to be doing the trick.  I have new tomato seedlings coming up now, my peas are slowly coming back to life, and my corn has been left alone.

Never got the little bastage that started the trouble, unless he died from his struggles with the sprung mouse trap later on.

[Scout26]

Nope, just plotting his revenge with hundreds or thousands of his friends and family......