Critters

Small desert lizzard

 We have had to fight wind, heat and sun.  These elements are normal.  However, we have had to deal with many other types of problems.  These are a few.  Sorry Marci but it was them or our garden.

There are many lizards around.  This was a rare catch.  They eat many of the bugs.  They are very plentiful in our area. We did not mean for this little guy to get caught.

Top side

Our Potato vines were over six inches tall.  The stubs are what is left

The chipmunks are in the thousands.  When we first planted our garden we could look accross the fence from where the garden was and it would be like the crickets in pioneer time.  One day while we were gone to appointments a "herd" of these little critters invaded our garden and had a "Chipmunk Smorgas Board".  Our potatos were sticks and all of the watermelon, cantalope, carrots and beets were gone.
The picture below is a Kangaroo Rat.  The look just like a minature Kangaroo.  They love gardens.


Kangaroo rat

 Below is the Chipmunk.  These guys were here in the thousands.    We thought we were the only garden that had been invaded but there are several others that have been having the problem.  We put mesh wire 4 inches under the ground so they could not dig underneath the fence.  We found that they would just climb the fence.  We put up chicken wire and they would go through the holes.  We finally installed wire with quarter inch holes and made a tent-like structure over the top of the rows of vegetables.  This seemed to be the most effective along with traping them.

Chipmunk