Rock 104 (Ft. Wayne, IN) might not consider this to be a ringing endorsement and maybe it won't turn out the way we're hoping, but we've just got to do something before the raccoons decimate our first sweet corn crop in three years.
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| All tasseled out and heavy with pollen! |
When Romie informed me that our sweet corn patch had had visitors last night, I knew it meant the raccoons had found it. So much for my bragging just this week that in all the time we've grown sweet corn here, that we'd never had a serious problem with coons. A few ears here and there, but no big deal. Until now.
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| As cute as they are, I'm not willing to share my sweet corn with the raccoons. Photo from Wikimedia Commons/D. Gordon E. Robertson |
With all the rain, unfortunately, we've let the grass get out of hand in the corn, but that allowed us to see just where the coons had been. They were fairly picky about what they wanted to snack on and all told, they got about 10 ears on this go-round. They also knocked over a few stalks that still had intact ears on them, which I uprighted.
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| He didn't even finish his meal! |
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| What a waste... |
So we pondered what to do about it. There are various methods for keeping raccoons out of the corn, and we decided to put a radio in the middle of the patch, along with a light, and we're blasting Rock 104 all night long. We'll see if our raccoons are headbangers or not.
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| The radio and a trouble light are both hung from shepherd's hooks in the middle of the corn patch. |
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| Ironically, "Midnight Rider" was playing on the radio when we first turned it on. |
Next year, I think we'll invest in an inexpensive electric fence for the corn patch to keep the thieves out. All this corn be OURS!
"Bejeweled"
6 comments:
I was attracted to your blog when I saw the title of this post on another blog. I've had a persistent problem with raccoons, which I've written about a few times on my own blog. What really frightened me was the notion that they might go after my corn, which I'm growing this year for the 1st time. I've been using non-toxic repellant granules in other areas but hadn't thought to add them to my raised veg beds. I'm going to do that now! You'll have to post an update as to whether the rock radio works - I'd be willing to try that too, although I'm not sure how my neighbors would feel about it.
I was attracted to your blog when I saw the title of this post on another blog. I've also had problems with raccoons, which I've posted about on my own blog. However, I hadn't considered that they might go after my corn, which I'm growing for the 1st time this year. I've used non-toxic repellent granules fairly successfully elsewhere so I'm headed out now to scatter some about the corn. Thanks for the heads-up. You'll have to provide an update as to whether the rock radio works.
This is ironic, Kylee, because I was just talking to someone recently who was having also having trouble with raccoons in his sweetcorn, and I remembered my father-in-law always putting a radio out at night to try to keep them away. I couldn't remember what kind of music worked best, though--the headbanging rock sounds like a good choice:)
Kylee did you plant squash around your sweet corn beds? A farmer told me the critters don't like the prickly squash and leave the corn alone.
Kris ~ So far, so good! This corn patch is actually in our neighbor's yard and he's okay with it. He said he can't really hear it inside his house, so that's good. Good luck with yours!
Rose ~ It's working so far!
Dawn ~ I did plant squash among the sweet corn, but not everywhere. It's a large sweet corn patch and if I planted squash all around it, oh myyyyyy, we'd have enough squash for the entire county. LOL! I didn't plant it for that reason, but I did just read that they don't like it.
Racoons aren't my problem, because I don't grow corn, but we just saw our first bunny this year. in 2011 and 2012 rabbits did a terrible job on the vegetable garden and young flower plants. I was hoping the increased fox and owl population had taken care of the rabbit population, but I guess I can't expect them to eat every single rabbit.
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