Barbara,

I've done this for years, and often get my hose at thrift stores too. Some of the thrift stores in Ft. Worth sell a big bunch of them in a plastic bag for $3 or $4 so I always have to stop by a thrift store in FW and look for them when we are down there.

I've never had a raccoon tear through a stocking to get at a melon, and haven't tried them to protect corn so don't know if they'd keep a coon out of the corn or not. I suspect the coons would use their paws/claws and teeth to rip right through the hose though. When we put cat food (as bait) in a live trap to catch a raccoon, the raccoon eats all the food AND the plastic dish it is in every time. (It is the little clear plastic container that sticks of Crisco come in.) I think any animal hungry enough to eat plastic probably could tear through panty hose, but I'm just guessing.

Dawn

Dawn
There just HAS to be a way that humans, (the supposed highest lifeform on the planet) can figure out a way to outsmart a racoon bent on eating their corn crop. I mean, after all, if we can send men into outer space and bring them back again, SURELY!!
Anyways, the stocking idea might still work for ground melons, and squash, that some of the gardeners have been having problems with varmits eating into them. Not talking about the two legged varmits. THAT'S another story!

Yup, i'm off to do some slinging right now. And.......drooling over some of those that look like their getting about ready to ripen.

Barbara

Electric fencing with the lowest line low enough a raccoon can't crawl under it without making contact. Or, electrified poultry netting, which will keep out everything except deer who can jump over it.

Some people have luck keeping coons out by putting a radio in the garden and leaving it on at night.

Some folks (and I've never tried this) wrap the ears with packing tape, esp. glass strapping tape. You can google and find directions, or if you can't find any, let me know and I'll explain how.

Another way that some people swear by (and I haven't tried this one either, but I might next year) planting a border of dent/field corn several rows deep on all sides of their sweet corn. This works best if the dent/field corn pollinates at a different time from the sweet corn....preferably much later than the sweet corn. Thus, the sweet corn is 'hidden' inside the patch of field corn and the coons may not find it. I think it might work because the raccoons have never bothered any dent or field corn I've ever planted but they normally get into the sweet corn.

I've had the best success by planting absolutely as early as is humanly possible....normally about the 3rd week in March here if the soil is warm enough....and planting something that matures quickly...in 60-70 days. When I do that, I often have ripe corn by Memorial Day and the coons don't get it because they are not expecting corn that early. One of my old farmer neighbors used to always give me a hard time about that, saying (rather derisively) that early corn ears are smaller than corn with a later DTM. My response? I'd rather have a couple hundred 'small' corn ears (usually 5 1/2" to 7" long) than grow larger 8-10" ears and have the raccoons get all and us get none.

Some years the coons don't bother my Three Sisters garden in which the corn-winter squash-pole beans all grow together, but sometimes they get the corn anyway.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Portable Electric Poultry Netting

If you figure out a way to outsmart a raccoon, please let me know.

I knew they would show up when the sweet corn was ready. Have already lost some to them. Set the live trap with an ear of corn; stole and ate the corn outside the trap; set it next night with 3 eggs; caught the vicious beast (you should have heard it growl at my husband); set it last night with l egg; egg gone trap not tripped.

Plan tonight sacrifice three eggs again or try cat food???

I still have 4 rows of later corn coming on. Now the doves and Brown Thrashers have found it! I see them flying out the patch daily. Corn this year may be as unsuccessful as the tomatoes.

Doves raid corn patches????!!! Sweet, gentle, HARMLESS doves????

I see them coming for the hen scratch I put out, but they'd better leave my corn alone!

Sorry about your coon problems. Maybe eventually you'll get them all relocated. We had lots of problems with them in Grove, but I guess anywhere in the country, there'll be coons.

Barbara

Glenda,

We always use canned cat food which they find irresistable.

Anyone who thinks coons are not violent has never had one trapped in a live trap. They certainly do growl and hiss and make all sorts of sounds when they are trapped.

Our friend's brother set out a live trap and trapped a raccoon (a different one because he shot each one he trapped) 18 nights in a row in 2006, and the coons STILL got every single ear of his corn from his very large corn patch. He's closer to the river than we are, and he has a lot more wildlife than we do.....and we have a lot!

For the doves, we have trained them to leave the garden alone by putting little piles of henscratch or cracked corn or sunflower seeds in specific spots outside the garden. They eat at those spots every day, but they leave the garden alone, so I am a happy camper. I don't think I've ever seen a bird that loves corn as much as the doves here do.

Barbara, We feed the doves year-round and I love having them here. I figure we might as well feed them or they will take our corn and they'll steal the sunflower seeds from the maturing sunflower heads too.

The doves are a lot of fun to have around. In the early morning they sit on the electric lines and wait for me to come put out the cracked corn. When they see me coming, all but one of them flies away. That one just sits and watches. As soon as the corn is out and I am in the garden, the watcher decides the coast is clear and calls to them and they all come back and eat the corn. In the evening, they come back and finish off whatever is left from that morning.

Even when I think that I am alone here, I am never alone because the doves or the hummingbirds or the rabbits or the deer are always hanging around, most likely waiting to be fed!

Dawn

Hey Guys/Gals!

I too have used the hosiery...only I bought the cheap knee-highs @ Walmart. They don't seem to work as good as the slings we made with left over weed-block fabric...but I'm bragging. Our sugar-babies and Ambrosia melons have been 6 lbs or better each...(just had to brag a little!!!). I'm so stinkin' PROUD! Great idea you shared about the thrift store! I'll be sure next year to make a stop to check it out.

Brought up a question for me...about the corn - could it be used not only to deter critters, but with the close weave could it possibly stop insects? My father-in-laws' corn was delicious this year but riddled with worms. We've talked about all kinds of deterants like cologne on cotton-balls at the top tassel. But I'm wondering if it might keep the insects from depositing their offspring down in the ear? What do you think? I've not tried to grow corn because well, it's just too difficult and time consuming for the small return. But here I am....the obligatory daughter-in-law trying to make good use of Pop's corn. Mother-in-law WON'T do anything with it and bless his heart, that's just not right! I think she has issues...but I digress. He's enjoyed so much growing it and sharing it with me that this idea really caught my attention. He's 83 and I don't have many more years to share gardening with him so any thought's you might have are appreciated....

Happy slinging, Barbara!

Paula

My biggest pests are squirrels. They plant black walnuts everywhere. I had sunflowers in a plastic feeder that had wooden dowels for perches. I guess the dowels hurt his little tummy because he chewed them off flush with the feeder. No problem. I ran chopsticks through and created another, and another, and another, etc. Eventually he chewed holes near the bottom so he could reach the very last seed in the bottom of the feeder.

I started looking for another feeder and finally found one that was completely metal, perches and all, but it was $30. I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $30 for a new feeder in addition to all of the seed I buy. As I went through the check-out they gave me a coupon worth $10 with a $50 purchase. Well I can always spend $50 at Lowes, and I had a $30 start on it with the feeder. So next trip I bought it and put it up. Well the squirrel can't destroy the feeder, but he can hang upside down and hook his claws into the metal covering the seed and put his nose into the little trough where the seeds fall.

I read that they don't eat safflower seeds so I thought I would try those. I went to the co-op with DH and saw a bag there. I mentioned to him what I had read and he said we should get some and try it. I bought 10 pounds and after I was in the truck, I noticed that the bag was $10. I don't think I can afford to feed that on a regular basis when I can buy 50 pounds of sunflower seeds for under $16.

Once I bought a couple of little dwarf peach trees. As I unloaded them, my neighbor was watching from her yard. She yelled, "Are those peach trees?" I answered "yes", and she said, "The squirrels will love 'em". She was right. They pulled every peach in the green stage. I finally junked the trees.

The worst part is this. We live in a neighborhood that is "filled" with black walnut trees. In addition, my neighbor has a squirrel feeder and it always has food in it for them. But no.....they have to come eat my bird seed and bird feeder.

We caught another raccoon last night using the egg! He was huge.

I forgot about your feeding the doves away from the garden. I have been keeping seeds out but had stopped because the grackles and sparrows were eating a container (1 gallon) a day.

Couldn't get chops this morning they were out. Think I will sprinkle some wild bird seed on the drive.

Paula, I don't know if you could protect ears with hosiery or not. I would think you would have to be positive that pollination was completely finished since it occurs over a period of time (it takes one grain of pollen to pollinate each corn silk and that forms one kernel). Also, corn earworms might eat through the nylon stocking. Also, European corn borers probably would bore right through the material. So, you could try, but I'd only try on one portion of the corn so that if the stocking impedes pollination, you don't lose the whole crop. I'd also worry that in a very wet year, the corn ears covered with fabric might stay too moist and develop corn smut.

People who save seed from their corn plants use corn ear bags to ensure their corn doesn't cross-pollinate, but I've never seen the bags and don't know what they look like.

My neighbor, who is not organic, uses Sevin to kill the corn earworms and borers. I use Bt sprayed on the ears and mineral oil dropped into the tops of the ears after pollination is complete and that keeps our corn relatively earworm free thought not necessarily borer free. I just cut out the parts of the ears with worms/borers in them after harvest and they usually aren't a big problem on early corn, but can be on late corn.

Carol, I'm so glad the squirrels leave us alone more or less. Of course, with all the oak, pecan and walnut trees here, they have a good food source which might help. That might be why they don't mess with the garden. Every now and then they do come to the birds' henscratch piles and 'steal' some goodies. They don't do it often, though, because the cats chase them.

Squirrels cannot tolerate bird seed sprayed with hot pepper. You can buy seed that is treated with it. I see it in stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth area sometimes. Of course, that might send the squirrels to your garden instead. If the squirrels were bothering our garden, I believe we'd just shoot them and put an end to that, but we're out in the country where you're allowed to shoot varmints.

Glenda, So, do you think your earlier varmint damage to the pumpkin and such were the raccoons? Groundhogs? Did y'all figure anything out?

And, I meant to mention that one neighbor has had some success keeping deer away by putting a radio on a news-talk station in the garden at night and leaving it on. If the garden is a long way from the house, you might have to have a mighty long extension cord to do this.

I think raccoons get a lot larger than most people expect. We've seen some huge ones here and I know people who've had raccoons kill their cats, kittens and poultry. I think raccoons are "cute" to look at, but they are trouble around the small animals, yards and gardens.

Dawn

DH says squirrel tastes like chicken when it's fried. He was a share-cropper's son and he and his brothers often went out squirrel hunting for their dinner table. I led a sheltered life, I guess, as I never tasted squirrel. Or rabbit. Or frog's legs. All of which were on DH's parents table when they could be caught. Nowadays, I'd be afraid to eat a wild critter for fear they harbor Mad Squirrel Disease or something. LOL! I really hate those little boogers. They'll chew holes in wood to get into bird houses and the eaves of your house. And yes, I have lots of black walnut trees coming up in my raised beds every spring, too. There's only one tree that they come from, so I go out there in the fall and pick up as many of the walnuts as I can to keep the squirrel from getting them. It wouldn't be so bad if they'd eat the walnuts, but they never seem to be able to remember where they've buried them. There's a flaw in their instincts somewhere on that one!

I've never had a problem with doves eating things they aren't supposed to. I really enjoy them coming to the garden, though they startle me flying off when I am not expecting them to be there. Now the sparrows, that's another matter. They've gotten territorial and will chase off the yellow finches and the house wrens that I would really like to see more of.

I got a kick out of the pictures of the melon slings. I think, in my forays to Bartlesville to go "garaging" every saturday morning, I'm might watch for some huge bras and save them for my next melon growing, just for fun. Something for my park-walking audience to enjoy. LOL

Panty hose is good for lots of things. When I worked where I had to dress up, I always had a lot of hose with runners. I'd even cut off the leg with runners and when I had two pair with only one leg, I'd wear them both at the same time. But anyway, ask women that you know who dress up a lot. I bet you could get as many pairs of hose as you need, for free. I used hose for tying tomato plants up, for storing onions and for making slings. I never thought about it before, but I bet you could slip hose on zucchini or over spaghetti squash to foil those squash bugs.

Ilene,

You can protect your squash family veggies with long sections of stocking placed over the stems while the plants are young. For maximum protection, you'd want some of it above ground and a couple of inches below ground.

I've never tried it, though, but I might next year. I haven't lost a single plant to SVBs this year, oddly enough, so I'll probably be plagued with them next year.

I've used hose for a lot of the same things you have and find them very helpful in the garden.

Dawn

Hi all, after I read George's post, I wanted to check in too. I've been dealing with a long stretch of family problems that kept me away from home for a good chunk of the last 2-3 years. I'm hoping for a break in the action but don't know if this is going to happen. Guess time will tell. I'm back on the road with DH and am writing this from a hotel near Ft Worth. We fly home tomorrow morning.

I've missed reading the posts and the great advice asked for and given here. This forum is a very unique place.

I know this is an old thread about critters consuming melon crops. I didn't know if I should start a new thread or put my question at the end of this one.

I have a similar problem with melons but not because of coons. Last year, I planted several hills of Sugar Baby watermelons and cantaloupes. I watched the plants as they bloomed and the fruits began to grow. The melons were growing well and maturing - I was able to harvest 2 or 3 Sugar Babies early, but so many more were in the process of maturing. DH is convinced that watermelon juice is good for achy sore joints so he was watching too as they got closer to maturity.

Suddenly, within a couple of days, every melon had one hole, then two or three holes. The damage wasn't like what people describe with racoons. My melons had 2-4 holes that were about 2-3" across and quite deep. The entire melon crop was destroyed almost overnight.

My main tomato crop had similar damage (holes in tomatoes) when I was away. I thought it was caused by thirsty black snakes.

I knew the melon holes were made by critters but didn't know what. A friend came by to cut some trees, looked at my pathetic melon beds, said the damage was done by crows. That surprised me but he was born and raised here, knows what critters are enemies of different crops. BTW: I live in SE VA, we have sandy soil. The farmers in my area produce huge quantities of sweet potatoes, tomatoes for commercial canning, and melons.

Has anyone had problems with crows destroying melons? Our friend recommended putting chicken wire over and around the melon beds (seems like cages could be HUGE by season's end). I thought about adding mylar ribbons and CDs that bounce around in the wind. Do you think pantyhose would deter crows?

Any other ideas?

We have racoons and trap them. The coons love bird feed and can get into almost any container that we use to store large quantities of seed. A few weeks ago, we put a 50 lb weight on top of a metal can that held bird feed. A racoon shoved that weight off and polished off several pounds of black oil seed. I see no evidence of racoons in the garden. If I do, I'll take Dawn's advice about electric fencing.

Has anyone dealt with crows? Is fencing the best solution?

Take care,

Pam

Good grief, Dawn. Thank you! You give such good advice, it's so comprehensive that I rarely need to come back with more questions. I think I'll start with one of the tunnel options - I'm more familiar with them.

A few years ago, I was doing more winter sowing. DH (Pete) helped me build a tunnel of sorts - a hoophouse. The hoophouse was about 4' wide, I think 12-16' long (hunting for photo). We hammered 2' pieces of rebar into the ground, then pushed the ends of PVC pipe onto the rebar. Covered the structure with heavy duty plastic sheeting attached to the PVC with banker clips. Laid concrete pavers inside to retain heat. Worked great. We have so much wind here, the hoophouse was more stable than I expected.

I may be able to make a similar structure to protect the melons. It would have to be wider. Maybe wrap it in deer netting? Or chicken fencing around the bottom to keep the melons from wandering outside, deer netting above? Lots of mylar ribbons as distractions.

I used a system of fishing line and mylar ribbons to keep deer out of a newly planted stand of trees. For crows, might make structure of stakes at close intervals, weave fishing line or twine back and forth between the stakes to protect from above, add a bunch of mylar ribbons and CDs. Probably still need fencing around the bottom.

What do you think would stand best chance of success?

Photo of the hoop house with winter sowing jugs outside.

Pam, I don't know. It depends on how smart the crows are. Flying into the fishing line might make them go away and stay away, but they're awfully smart and might figure out how to work around the fishing line. I'd do it whichever way would be easiest for you to maintain and to have easy access for harvesting.

I thought of you and your varmints when I was out in the garden yesterday working with (thankfully) the garden gate not only closed but held closed by a latch plus a bungee cord. By 10 a.m., I had been visited by a skunk (around 9 a.m.), a possum (around 9:20 a.m.) and a stray dog that (at almost 10 a.m.) I did not recognize as belonging to any of our neighbords. The skunk moseyed on but shouldn't have been out in daylight, you know, so I kinda wanted to shoot it, but I didn't want for the garden to smell like skunk for weeks and weeks. The possum hissed and snarled and tried to scare me out of my garden. I scolded it and it went away. I had my head down weeding when the dog came within about 8' of where I was kneeling (I was obviously inside the 8' tall fence and he was outside of it) and barked sharply at me. I stood up and did my best tough country woman impression, yelling 'You get on out of here, you hear me, go home now'. And it worked. He turned, ran straight down the driveway, turned north and ran north up our roadway at a high rate of speed. All I was thinking, each time, was how grateful I was to be behind a tall, sturdy fence. I was armed because I know better than to go out to the garden unarmed, but I hate to shoot an animal if it will just go away and leave me alone.

Dawn

Wow Dawn, that's an incredible story. I can see it in my mind's eye - a skunk (smart move not to shoot him), a hissing possum, the barking stray - and you packin heat in the garden!

Do you really?

I'm surprised that the skunk and possum were out and about in the daytime. The wildlife in your neck of the woods is a tad more aggressive than what we have here. Our daylight animals are mostly stray dogs, feral cats, rabbits, squirrels, white tailed deer. An occasional fox or coyote. Thousands of birds, hundreds of varieties. When I'm working out in the garden, sounds like an aviary.

Speaking of birds, still pondering ways to get rid of those thieving crows. I think your ideas about a tunnel covered with deer netting or similar are the best.

Be careful out there!

Pam, Ever since the year I was visited at/near the fenced garden by 2 different cougars (the second one was smaller than the first, so obviously wasn't the same one) about six weeks apart, I have tried to remember every morning to take a gun out to the garden with me. I haven't seen a cougar on our near our property since then, but neighbors have spotted them on their property and on ours, so even thoug it is an uncommon occurrence, the fact that it occurred at all has made me much more cautious. Those two occurrences were not my first encounters with cougars, but they were the first ones that were so close, and certainly the first time they were in our yard while a human was out there. The majority of our wildlife issues come from venomous snakes, coons (which prey upon chickens like mad), skunks, bobcats and coyotes. We see lots of other wildlife, but they generally steer clear of us. The foxes, for example, seem shy and not especially happy to be seen so they'll run away when they see us. We hear feral pigs more than we see them, though we have had them on our property occasionally.

We live in a bend of the Red River near the TX border with Texas to our west, south and east. There is a lot of wild, river bottom land, on those three sides of us and some of the bottom land is Wildlife Management Area, so there is a huge amount of wildlife here. I expected wildlife before we moved here. What we got is wildlife, wildlife, wildlife, wildlife, wildlife. For example, I knew ringtail cats existed but never had seen them in the wild until we moved here. I don't see them often, and when I do, I'm not happy to see them because they're generally trying to get into the chicken run or chicken coop, but I'm still always just amazed to see them.

Last year, we got almost 79" of rain and had repeatedly flooding over and over again. The Red River even swept away a few homes that had been near it for over 50 years and never had been flooded before. The river bottom lands were flooded for months. Consequently, the wildlife was driven to higher ground.....and guess where we live? On the higher ground they were seeking. We had so many snakes, and so many huge ones much larger than what we normally see, especially broad-banded copperheads (so I am guessing they really stay in the bottom lands most of the time). I am hoping for a more normal year this year, but doubt we will get it. We had snakes out in January and February, which is incredibly rare, because we just weren't cold enough. I've already had enough snake encounters this year to make me a nervous wreck. Living here would be just about perfect if we didn't have all the venomous snakes.

Being visited by a skunk, a possum and a stray dog in broad daylight all within a few hours, was disconcerting to say the least. Days like that are why I am exceptionally careful to close and latch the garden gate behind me. I don't want to be trapped in a garden with an 8' tall fence and with wildlife that might be dangerous. It also is the reason our two separate fenced gardens have two gates each---a main gate that gets used daily and a back gate on the opposite side of the garden in case something comes in the main gate and a person needs to escape quickly from the garden to avoid it. Normally, we assume all skunks out in broad daylight are rabid and shoot them, but if I had shot that one, the garden and I would have smelled strongly of skunk for days. I don't like shooting one so close to the house if we can just follow it 50 or 100 yards and shoot it. I hate to shoot possums, so was relieved when this one ran off. Possums are predators of venomous snakes, so I try to just leave them alone when they are out. It had been a rainy night for two consecutive nights, so I felt like maybe they were hunting for food because of those two rainy nights/days.

Stray dogs are, sadly, a dime a dozen here as people commonly dump them in the country all the time. Most stray dogs form packs and begin preying upon foals, calves, kids, etc. and then the ranchers shoot them. Everyone who lives around us has taken in more dogs than they need or want, but we all could have 100 times the number we do have because so many sorry excuses for human beings dump them all the time. The same is true of feral cats, but feral cats prey more upon wildlife than farm and ranch animals, so people have more toleration for them and generally either ignore them or trap them and try to tame them at least enough to turn them into semi-feral barn cats.

One surprising benefit of bird netting, by the way, is that apparently snakes cannot see it well or they think they can squeeze through it. We've caught quite a few copperheads that way, though not on purpose. I'd rather the copperhead get hung up in the bird netting before it can bite a person. Last year, as our adult son was bending over to open one of the barn's roll-up doors, a copperhead struck at him, but it got entangled in a piece of bird netting I had left drying on the pavement there, so the snake couldn't reach him, thank goodness. So, while I've never put up bird netting on purpose to catch snakes or to keep them out of certain places, it is a sort of beneficial side effect of using the netting.

We wanted to live surrounded by nature. It is one of the reasons we moved to the country. It still is one of the things we love most about living here, but all wildlife is not created equal. I can sit and watch cottontails hop around in the yard or pastures endlessly. Coyotes? Not so much.

Dawn

Dawn, your experiences with the cougars - and other not cute wildlife - is horrifying. I'd like to think that I'd as brave as you but haven't been confronted by cougars or daytime skunks so I don't know. We have weapons and I practice occasionally but not often enough to keep good skills.

Bird netting and snakes? We do have lots of snakes, including venomous ones. Water mocs, lots of copperheads. I've gotten pretty good at chopping them in two with a hoe.

Our reasons for moving to this area are similar to yours. Surrounded by nature. It's even more beautiful than we imagined before we moved here full time. This is a place where people have summer places on the water. No neighbors within sight in the winter. Pete is on the road about half the time so I try to be careful.

Take care,

Pam

Pam, It helped that I had seen some crossing a field before, and had had one roar very close to me in the darkness on a winter night, and had often heard them roaring/screaming/whatever you want to call it off in the distance many times before I had the up close and personal visits. Still, it was horrifying, and I stayed out of the garden for much of the rest of that year, especially after the second one. I was a nervous wreck for a while, but you cannot live like that, so I just had to get over it. For a long time I had a real sort of PTSD reaction to even seeing a photo of a cougar....my heart would race, I'd get an adrenalin rush, and I'd be genuinely scared, and I'd have to tell myself "it is only a photo, it isn't real". That feeling never has gone completely away, but it is much less intense than it used to be.

Tim is gone a lot too, so carrying a gun with me is smart anyway. Women who are alone a lot in a quiet neighborhood need to be prepared to defend theirselves at all times, and I have great neighbors who "keep an eye on me" when Tim isn't around. Any of them will come rushing right over to shoot a venomous skunk or snake if I'm in a position where I cannot get to it.....like if the snake is between me and my gun or if I forgot and left the gun inside. One neighbor complained to me at Christmas that "you didn't need me to come shoot any snakes last summer". It cracked me up. I told him that last year's snake sightings were all when Tim or Chris were around. I am sorry he felt left out. I'll try to do better for him this year. You be careful too.

Dawn