blueyedkitty04's Blog

~May 7th, 2008~

I have definitely learned a lot about growing plants from seed indoors this spring and have become successful in doing an adequate job of it. I have prepared my outdoor garden carefully, amending the soil, cleaning out the winter mess, and designing new flower beds. When the time was right I planted my outdoor seeds, watered and watched. The weather has warmed and I was so happy to see sprouts in the flower beds. Thats the end of my "dreamy" spring. Something is eating my seedlings!!! I don't know what. About a week ago I noticed what I thought to be cat paw prints/impressions in my garden close to where I had planted some seeds. I passed it off as that, but when I saw the cat walk though the garden and he left no impressions. I was worried and thought, "It can't be....nooooooooooooo", something was getting my seeds. I decided to wait it out and keep watering and planting more seeds in proper spots. So, sure enough a few seedlings begin to emerge, boy 'o boy was I happy!! "They've made it!" I thought!! So, super excited I went on with gardening. The next day I went out with Hannah to check on my other "babies" and to my horror they were gone. "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?" I wanted to scream!! What could possibly be torturing me? Killing my innocent little babies??

PLEASE, IF ANYONE KNOWS WHAT CAN BE GETTING MY BABIES, PLEASE HELP!! ALSO WHAT I MAY DO TO STOP THEM?!

I am planning on setting up my husbands "Game Cam", a camera made for capturing picture of wildlife using motion sensors. Last year I caught the "Beast" eating my wild Columbine tops off standing on it's hind legs. I couldn't figure out exactly what it was. In the end (after catching it in a live trap) we figured that it was a pack rat. We ended up catching at least 6 or more last summer (needless to say I had a terribly hard time keeping any flower for too long and was VERY frustrated).

Above is the picture of the "Beast" that was eating my flowers last year caught on camera by my husbands "game cam".

Above is one of the many "Beasts" that attacked my garden.  Also known as a Pack Rat, notice I caught him using tin foil as they love shiny things. 

We have had really strange weather for the past two days. It'll rain, get windy, then get super sunny and hot out, next we'll get hail. Yesterday it was raining/hailing on one half of my house and not on the other for like 10 or more minutes, it was weird! Only half my garden ended up getting watered substantially.

I hope everyone is getting great gardening weather!

~M~