3 years ago I had a great pumpkin harvest. I got about 6 big Bohemian pumpkins. They grew easily and ate well. My only issue with them was the size of the vine (huge). Last year I tried to grow pumpkins in an unsuitable position(not sunny enough) and the crop failed completely. This year I decided to try one golden nugget pumpkin plant in my main bed as they are a comparatively compact variety. The plant hadn’t been doing super well as its main stem had been damaged by wind about a month ago but it had still managed to set a couple of pumpkins. I went outside about a week ago to be greeted by this sight:
A couple of days later it looked like this:
Then the other fruit was eaten in much the same fashion. A week ago I had two developing pumpkins. Now I have none. I’m pretty sure I know the culprit. I’ve seen a very fat rat in the garden lately. Do these look like teeth marks to you?
Although I’m sad to lose my pumpkins I am more concerned about my tomatoes as the creature/s have started on them now and my beautifully formed (but still very green) Rouge de Marmande tomatoes are disappearing. I’ve set a couple of traps – the kind that traps the animal inside of a box (for disposal of later) but the are proving ineffective. I have used snappy traps in the past but we managed to catch more birds than rodents which was distressing. I am not a cat lover so that is not an option. Any other good ideas?
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