In my garden, it is squirrels that do the digging. Every morning I come out to find some holes dug in anything newly planted....even containers! I think they are looking for the acorns or horse chestnuts they buried last fall.

I would just use some light row cover over the starts. Support it so that it is not touching the plants and peg down the base so they don't go under. This will also keep off the flying insects that like to lay eggs to feed off the veggies, like cabbage loopers, etc.

Does row cover go over the veggies like a tent?

Or flat on the ground around the plants?

Over like a tent. Something like this:

Won't a skunk or squirrel just go under the edge and keep digging?

Also, I use a sprinkler in the middle of these starts, and so a tent would make the sprinkler useless.

The row cover is quite efficient at keeping critters of all types out. They will focus on something easier to get to :-) And the fabric is fully permeable so rain, sprinkler water and sunlight are able to penetrate.

Scores of gardeners use this stuff.....it is very common for your application and also very popular.

What about, instead of the tent idea, which would be difficult for me to make work, could I find a mesh fabric and cut that into 2x2' squares, and a hole in the middle for the plant (and a slit on one side to get them into place) and use skinny metal stakes to anchor them?

Thanks.

Mac

I think it is birds looking for soil creatures for their chicks. Have you seen robins around? I would put burlap on the ground with openings for the plants.

Robins....or any other birds.......don't dig holes 2' deep and 2' wide looking for worms or other soil critters. Whatever is doing this is mammalian.

Did you use any strongly scented organic fertilizer when planting? Blood meal, bone meal, manures? That could be attracting undesirables.

I suppose you could just put the cloth on the ground as you described but you lose the benefit of it keeping all the flying insects away from your plants as well. I'm not sure why you are finding this so difficult to do. As I mentioned before, it is a very common practice and you see these row cover tents or tunnels in virtually every p-patch/community garden in the area.

I do see robins, but they are not digging holes. They are looking under leaves for worms, away from where the damage is..

Windberry, I heard that burlap tends to fall apart after a while. Not sure if that is right.

For vegetable starts, where there may be dozens or even hundreds of plants, large pieces of metal mesh can be effective in reducing squirrel digs. Chicken mesh or finer will keep the squirrel craters very small. For a few larger plants, hardware cloth cylinders about 1 foot tall are very effective. If you can mass-produce some hardware cloth pieces to place flat and around the vegetable stems, that will solve the problem, no staking required. But the cloth can be nasty to handle in small pieces.

"Windberry, I heard that burlap tends to fall apart after a while. Not sure if that is right. "

It is why I recommended it for you. It is made of organic materials that will decompose eventually without leaving in the soil any undesirable residue.

I am pretty sure it is Robins digging for soil creatures in your garden, it is exactly what they do in mine. They are desperate now to find enough food for their chicks, it will quiet down in a month or two. If the holes are very big it could be crows, too.

My cat is helping us garden.... moved transplants...holes next to tomatoes...

I was wrong.

It is Mr. Robin.

I saw one of them from a good angle this morning, and it looked like he was really moving some dirt (not just leaves).

(I also saw a giant raccoon in the kitchen garden early this morning, but he was not digging, and there was no damage at all)

I am covering up the holes and spraying the ground around the plant bases with a deer repellent that I happen to have (eggs-pepper). Not sure if that is going to do it.

Mac