We have a rat! Thankfully, not in the house, but in the second place I least want them: In my vegetable garden!
This isn't the first time I've had mice and rats in my garden. After all, they don't coin my town "Rodent Park" for nothing. But it has been a few years. I thought I'd solved my rodent problem by rat-proofing my compost bin. And indeed, it's not the compost they're in. Curiously, I can't find any signs that they've been eating anything--YET. But we do have the telltale droppings around our garbage cans and through this garden path:
Luckily, I already had today off work. It gave me the chance to go out and quickly take some corrective measures.
The first one was to pull in all the tomatoes I can at the moment. In the past, rodents have only come for my tomatoes or my compost, and the tomatoes they prefer are the juicy ripe ones. So I'll be picking just as they turn on a daily basis until we stop seeing signs of rats.
Then I spent the morning doing a major garden clean-up, knowing that rats prefer areas where they can take shelter and hide. I did my best to clear out what was spilling onto the paths, pulling out plants that had reached their end, and cutting back what was growing out of control. After all, one can only eat so much spaghetti squash!
The bright side is new planting space for my fall garden.
So between this and traps, our rat problem will hopefully be a fleeting one! Every year, it's something. I thought I was doing pretty well with only an occasional tomato horn worm and a few cucumber beetles. As always, nature insists on reminding me it's out there!
Happy Gardening!
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