Squirrels in the area?

Josh

Yep but I've never seen them near the side of my garage because it is very open and nowhere near a tree. I trapped and released one a few weeks back. Seems like rabbits are the bigger problem these days but no way a rabbit could do this.

Chipmunks maybe. They like to mess around with potted plants. In fact, I had a large rubber tree outside a number of years back, and when I was bringing it in, half way through the patio door a chipmunk came zinging out of the plant, luckily toward the outside, and not in the house. It's definitely a rodent that was "filing" down its teeth. I know, the pot is soft, but they do it anyway.

Joe

Looks like rats to me, they love to chew.

Jerry

This morning I noticed another one of my containers on the side of my garage had a visitor. This time the container was not chewed on but my 5-1-1 was stirred around. Perfectly actually. I looks like whatever it was brushed the 5-1-1 perfectly from the middle towards the edges, very neatly. The stem of the tomato plant was exposed by an inch or so but undamaged. I know we had some pretty strong T-storms last night in Northern NJ but it something like this was caused by heavy rain then the other 6 containers would have had the same issue.

I have to start thinking about putting up some sort of protection on these containers without restricting air flow. Any suggestions? Something removable would be nice. I already have my square Burpee cages inside the containers as you can see in the photo so that at least gives me someone to attach to.