Intruders, Intruders!

Intruders have invaded the garden patch!  Yep, I stepped out on the deck this week to admire the fruits of my labor and saw a baby groundhog scurrying around the garden trying to find a way out when he saw me.  Needless to say, my blood pressure went up a few notches.   I ran back in to put on a pair of pants, couldn't be caught in my tee and robe in the garden, and of course the little monster was gone when I returned.  That's probably a good thing, that would have been time enough for him/her to devour a few more things.  I am declaring war!   As you can see, there's not a leaf left on my pole beans.  Gone, all gone.    

A family has burrowed under one of my storage buildings and I need to come up with a plan to rid these creatures from my property or least my garden.  I thought we could share space since they haven't done damage to the structure of my building, but they don't understand my garden is off limits.  Until I came up with another plan, I googled my problem and a temporary solution is to sprinkle crushed pepper flakes or cayenne pepper around the perimeter of the garden.  The groundhogs aka woodchucks will remember the experience once they encounter it and stay away.  So far it's working.  The cayenne pepper washes away, but the crushed flakes has remained even through rain.  Looks like I'll be heading to Costco or Sam's today for an industrial size container of each.  I found a site that gave a tip on sprinkling a little dirt or sand with the pepper to keep it from washing away.     

It appears the intruder nibbled on my cucumbers too.  Thankfully the cukes still have their blooms.  I sprinkled a little cayenne pepper on the leaves, hopefully the pepper will ward them off.  It seems the groundhogs have an acquired taste, they didn't seem to be interested in the squash, peppers, tomatoes or herbs. 

These cucumbers are suppose to be bush; however, they seem to be sprawling.  I'm wondering if they were mislabeled.  That seems to be the story of my life, lol.  I end up with the wrong color shrub and now it looks like I'll be dealing with mislabeled items in the veggie garden. 

Oh well, it looks like my adventures in gardening will not be boring.  Thankfully all was not lost with my pole beans,  a few of the plants have new growth.  I pulled up the few plants that seemed hopeless, and in the process planted a few more seeds.  I've learned to turn negatives into positives.   I'll keep you posted on the new war!  If you have a remedy, please leave me a comment on how you conquered the groundhog in your garden.