Sorry to hear of your misfortune. To have that many ground hogs in one season, there must be a colony somewhere close by... perhaps on an abandoned property, utility easement, etc. They frequently nest here along roads, or on the railroad right-of-way. The problems will continue until the nest is destroyed. Don't know where you are, but you might want to ask what the local ordinances are there for pest control.

Or.. get a big dog. My rural garden is on a friend's property, and their two dogs quickly dispatch any ground hog foolish enough to enter their territory.

omg — so far, WCs have not been a problem for me…. I’m knocking wood! :p But with all this rain we’ve been getting, all the deer that have been munching, and then the storm we had on Tuesday night did enough damage here that I just decided that *anything* I can get from the gardens this year will be a bonus.

otcay, those settlers probably enjoyed their WC stew! :)

eta: for me, ground hog = wood chuck lol!

I've also seen and dispatched more whistle pigs this year than any year previously. I dispatched one in April that had dug a den under my shed and a week or so later there were 6 little ones running around my yard that I had to take care of.

10 years ago I never saw them around my property. Deer populations have also been increasing steadily over the last several years after I big decline in 2012 caused by a blue tongue epidemic.

I only saw one or two a year prior to this year, and they were always in a farmers field...this year they're like whack-a-mole...for every one we get, two more appear...it's just been horrible. My neighbor's been picking them off for me, he's gotten 6 so far...I just hope that once they're gone, more don't move in...it's not just me, many people around here are complaining about them getting their gardens this year.

same problem they (GH, I guess)been living under shed for years. Never seen but heard it. Hubby one time saw something whiz by.....Plus moles everywhere. , chipmunks.Tried the mole traps but property too big and they are Smart.

My prev lazy butt cat outdoor cat(wanderonto my propery and let stay )wouldnt keep them away either.

BRAZEN racoons even coming in my "hoop Houses" too with me out there. They all too smart to go into traps. Cant get an exterminator to visit.

A smart entrepenuer should start a businss here. I would pay for some to be done at a reasonible fee. I have traps but like I said THEY THEM those too smart. Also BUGS, BUGs destroying my plants. DAmn Squash bugs,stink bugs, caterpilars thousands of those Jap beetles. I pick off what I can.

And now Mildew on my first year of growing spagetii Squash.Help I could use But cant find anyone to hire occasionally anymore..

I have all in wire raised beds Bins with hdwe cloth underneath, If I could redo I would have made my circle bins just 12 inches tall instead of 2 and 3 ft. tall. I have to wtr almost everyday. wish I could have mad Squares instead of round bins. been easier to "tin" around. Plus gobs of Big black heavy nursery platic pots....

Whole garden in under that HAIL NEtting. But the AH find their way in. I have bitten off more than I can chew this year as I am 2 months behind on everything. and SLEEP DEPRIVED.

DEFINTELY dont want a dog as Im pet free again. (Just wish a neighbor dog would eliminate them when Im inside house and NOt tear up garden.)and wanna remain so Im too old for allof this.

But I wanna eat and not use chemicals. But I would use my battery operated sprayer for lie Safer product i I could find New batteries for. But Black and Decker quit making the recharegble

batteries.

Sorry for the long rant but so frustrated and tired... LOL

Sorry. I know how important our gardens are to us. Climate change may be affecting things. Also......humankind is affecting things in ways we might not see/feel. We live out in the country and have had to resort to a tall fence with a solar fence charger to keep out the coons. I don't think the deer even try to jump it, as I have so many trellis-like structures in there. But, when I had chickens, We buried 1/2" hardware cloth, flat on the ground, all the way around the run. Do you know where the groundhogs are digging from? The hardware cloth probably wouldn't deter them. How close to the garden do they start digging? I'm thinking there are a number of things you could do, structurally, but I'm not sure you want to spend that much money or work that hard to build that kind of structure......but I think it would help, if you're up to it. Are you absolutely sure it's groundhogs?

Just yesterday I was watching a program on PBS that discussed "Keystone Animals" and how their disappearance (usually by human kills) causes a disruption in predator vs prey. This allows the "prey" to thrive and become a destroyer of the environement. By adding the "keystone predators" back in, the situation reverses.

But, this requires us humans to co-exist with foxes, bobcats, lynx, coyotes, big cats, wolves, eagles, owls, hawks, AND big snakes. These are the "Keystones". We kill these because we are afraid of them. We need to respect them instead.

This year has been a disaster for me too 😣 I suspect rats, but could also be opossums and maybe raccoons. Pepper and bean plants eaten to the ground, not one tomato lasting long enough to turn red. Every leaf eaten off my cucumbers. I built hardware cloth enclosures and started over with more peppers, bush beans and bush cucumbers but the weather got hot and nothing is flowering, not even on new growth on the tomatoes. I had some squash early in the season, but after the weather got hot, no more flowers.

Deer will also eat tomato plants dont know about rabbit.... Except rabbit ate my tiny bean plants last year. It had to be rabbit as all is feced in and barely room to turn atound in my fenced in garden and big all over hail netting

what yall doing for squah bugs and jap beetles and caterpillars and mildew on squash plants?

Good luck and Blessings to all

yes, I'm absolutely sure it's ground hogs, my neighbor has already shot 6 of them this years since mid-may...I do know where they're coming from..my other neighbor has a 7 acre alfalfa field on one side of my property, and they come from that...

I saw a show about the european walled gardens...lol...if i only had the cash...the footers were 3 feet deep and the walls were a good 7 feet high! my dream garden!

Here in CA, the gophers are rampant eating even my onions! They just pull them under, bulb and all, leaving but the very tips poking up above the soil.

This is just so bad, even decades ago when I was a newbie, I got more produce out of my garden than I did this year. I feel like elmer fudd...i want to go out there with a shotgun and kill everything that moves...i just can't tell you how bad this year is.

Seeing as how much of the country is either in drought, floods, extreme heat, and/or fire conditions we've been very lucky here so far. Other than a dry May the weather has mostly cooperated and the critters have stayed clear of the gardens. Japanese beetles and SVBs have been the main insect garden problem, the JBs went to town on the sweet potato and persimmon tree leaves.

We can't do much about the weather, but I learned almost 50 years ago, that the only way to keep most animals out is a good fence. Once I learned that, then I learned you have to have a good tall fence and a solar powered electrical fence. Then you have to figure out how to stop them from burrowing under. I'm lucky this year we don't seem to have the mice and chipmunks that usually get in that way. Like someone mentioned (maybe on a different thread)..........It's hard to imagine the early settlers having to deal with growing themselves, the only food that was available and they didn't have fencing, etc. We just have to outsmart the varmints if we can and for me personally, that doesn't mean killing them. Now bad bugs are a different story (and I don't mean using chemicals).

We have lots of groundhogs, my neighbor shot 3 this past week and didn't get them all. I have a method of keeping them out of my fenced gardens which you may adapt. I have a stainless steel grill about an inch thick and maybe 20x30 inches. When I see a hole or see a hole they're starting I put that grill on the ground where they're digging. For some reason this stops them from digging under the fence anywhere for maybe a year or two. Maybe they have sore gums.

But a 2 foot strip of fencing laying on the lawn outside the fence may also help.

Sounds like all my problem animals migrated out your way. All I got LAST year was a few tomatoes and squash. Killed 5 groundhogs, 2 weighed 10+ lbs, 1 weighed almost 20. Coons got all my corn, deer mowed down cabbages and beans. Groundhogs ate tomato, squash, and pepper plants to the ground, and what the mammals didn't get the bugs got. So very frustrating.

This year I put up an electric fence and set traps over every hole I found. Also used a granular deterrent and liquid spray deterrent in the early season that really did help. Lowe's carries them though I can't remember the names.

wow..so it's not just me! I was feeling so defeated, but there will be next year!

We’ve finally had a break in the rain, the sun is out, temps are up, the tomatoes are finally showing color…. and my Sungold is dropping its tomatoes! :p

Not to get "political"........but we need to look deeper into why this is all happening. Seems like the more humankind takes over, the less balanced the earth can be. And the earth knows how to balance, but we don't. IMHO, we all need to live more naturally and simply and always consider how our actions and consumption might come back to affect us and our gardens. Just saying............

Well...I decided to use the time that I would usually be spending weeding, and processing vegetables to do some things I've wanted to get to for a while..so I have made a new 3 bay compost bin, and I am just now running a new configuration for my drip irrigation..it was a maze of lines that i had hastily added when needed and not very neat, or efficient..when i'm done it will be much better..I have a couple of other things I want to get to, so next year will be better!

Hey Donna........it's one of them thar "silver linings" things. You have a good attitude! Good luck with your other projects. :)