That was no man, that was a raccoon- or two, or three. They caused the above damage, and much more too. When we planted this Native American garden, the book we got the plan from said to plant enough to share with the wildlife that will surely be attracted to your lush, green and tasty plants. Okay, we had plenty, enough to share. But what the book didn’t say was that the wildlife wouldn’t just come in, take a few ears, thank us and leave, they’d come in, tear open unripened ears looking for the ripe ones, tear down stalks looking for more ripe ones, and destroy the stalks that the beans need for their support- no wonder they wear masks.
Our neighbor, the one that has done a large garden for seven years now, put out a radio to scare the raccoons (and deer) away, and he said it worked as long as the batteries didn’t run out. So we put out a radio, which seemed to work except for the areas of the garden far away from the radio, so we put out another radio, so that more of the area of the garden is blanketed with a barrier of sound. Nocturnal animals use sound as a powerful guidance system (that’s why a lot of them have such big ears); they also use scent, to guide them and warn them of dangers, so to take advantage of that, we are collecting our urine and pouring it around the garden at night. Both methods seem to be working and we are glad to have found ways to discourage the animals without harming them.
And we are picking, as the ears are ripening very fast now, especially the Ruby Queen. Here’s me and our cat Junior and some of the harvest:
Junior helps by rolling in the dirt, he says it keeps down the weeds.
The package of Ruby Queen seeds showed a completely red ear of corn, all the kernels, not just some like the Indian corn you see in grocery stores around Thanksgiving. Ours were not all red, but having silver and yellow corn growing near it, it probably cross-pollinated with the others. So we have red kernels mixed with silver, some all silver, some all yellow, and some mixed yellow and silver. We had some last night for dinner, steamed for about 10 minutes, then eaten with butter, salt and pepper. It was very good.
That corn sound luscious. Yum. Good luck with the four legged bandits. My folks once had a problem with a cherry tomato plant on their back porch. The ripe tomatoes kept disappearing overnight and my mom was getting frustrated – intil dad caught the thief in the act one night – it was a possum!