Yesterday I planted two 6-8”-ish tomato plants in this bed – today they are totally gone, I presume eaten down to the dirt because they don’t seem to have been pulled out. This same bed was recently planted full of sunflower seeds – they kept sprouting and disappearing over a couple of weeks (I’ve had experience with sunflower seeds being eaten out of the ground by squirrels and just never sprouting). This is right next to a bed full of plants, none of which have been touched. Any thoughts on what’s stealing my plants? I’m used to losing fruit to critters but never plant theft like this. Not sure if there’s anything to be done either way but I’m just curious!
by ParticularLeek7073
12 Comments
wabbit?
Squirrels maybe.
I had the same thing happen in my planters several times this year. I’m assuming rats or squirrels. Have never seen a rabbit around my yard, and no way for deer to get to them. Only happened to new transplants. Haven’t had any issues once they get a little bigger.
I had this happen last year in two raised beds. I had an oversupply of clear plastic forks and stuck a bunch, tines up, into the containers and that seemed to discourage the digging. They are back in place this year, just in case.
I very seriously doubt it’s squirrels (since several others seem to think so) I’ve gardened for decades in this city, always with squirrels in the area, and they do dig holes, and they do eat fruit once it’s ripening, but they have never EVER eaten an entire plant in my experience.
My guess is deer or possibly raccoons.
What part of town are you in?
In my area of Austin this would 100% be deer. I love them but they sure make gardening difficult.
Raccoons did that to us with some small starts years ago. It wasn’t *super* obvious they got pulled out but when we got to looking we realized what had happened.
Possibly deer, but I’d bet it was a shameless squirrel. A squirrel completely robbed me of a perennial plant, purple aster, in a container. I had two that I was reviving for the spring, and the next day, a pile of dirt is laying next to the container with a hole where one was. It took the roots and all. Absolutely ruthless.
Ants invented agriculture so I wouldn’t rule them out.
Set up a cam, find out and report back!
$30 and you’ll know for sure. [https://a.co/d/0aYAVcI7](https://a.co/d/0aYAVcI7)
Rats were the culprits in my case and I caught them in the act with my own eyes. They ate all the new radish, carrot, beet, and basil sprouts to the ground. I also planted a ton of sunflower seeds and they literally dug them up one by one and ate them when elsewhere in the yard I had birdseed out anyway. I even put hardware cloth around the sunflowers like a cage, but they dug around and still got in. Put some snap traps in the sunflowers cage and that took care of some of them, and then I think an owl got the rest.