I would love to have snakes in my garden but I fear that my neighbors would kill them. When i lived more remotely i did have snakes in my garden and i would put out water dishes for them to drink.
Aww, that was so sweet of you!
I park my dog next to trouble areas for raccoons, deer, that sort of thing. For other pests it’s mostly wild predators controlling them and getting the harvest time right. And it’s if something is consistently destroyed I may stop growing it, or only right next to the house.
That’s smart. I’m sure dogs are a great way to drive away animal pests (or else give them a valuable purpose as dog food ).
Have you noticed any trends in the most troubled-by-animal-pests species you grow?
Raccoons are usually the worst on corn. Deer hit most thing some. Springs grains(wheat and barley) just don’t seem to work well here and get hammered by rodents. Winter grains seem to work better and not get hit as hard.
Come to think of it, I think Joseph Lofthouse talked somewhere about how he selected his corn population to be more raccoon resistant. Was it in his book?
Oooh, winter grains being more animal-resistant makes sense. They’d be growing while a lot of herbivorous animals are dormant. That’s neat!