A fence won't stop a groundhog. They can & do climb. Are you sure that's what it is? IF you know it is and where their hole is a smoke bomb is most effective and will not leave you with a bad conscious.

I am opposed to transporting any GH as that makes it someone elses problem and could be how you got yours. A farmer told me a good way to handle the Havahart trap is to dunk it into a garbage can full of water. If you can't handle that it's back to the smoke bomb.

Smoke bombs should be done after sunset to make sure the whole fam damily is home. Then the holes MUST be filled in. Could be 3 holes so keep looking. Mark the holes with a stake or something so you can find it again next year when you get another tenant.

Good Luck

If you want to live with the groundhog, it is fence plus electric fence.

I battled woodchucks for 15 years at my previous house. It is very frustrating. I used the Havahart and smoke bombs which work when used correctly, but the problem is that even if you remove the current woodchucks, new woodchucks will always move in. I decided the only real deterrents are a big aggressive dog or a gun. LOL

An electric fence would probably work well for a large garden. My veggie garden isn't that big so I put fencing around the groups of plants that the woodchucks love. This year I fenced the kale, cabbage, and swiss chard.

I use wire fencing that has a 2 x 4 inch grid. I cut it down to about 2 feet high then cut the top and bottom wire edge off so that there are spikey ends sticking out. The bottom spikes go in the ground to secure the fencing and the top spikes stick up as a deterrent. These spikey ends are incredibly sharp and a woodchuck would be in for a surprise if it the tried to go over or dig under. In fact, I have to watch out that I don't skewer myself on them. :) Probably not a method recommended around children.

1dahlia4me,

I don't have ground hog but wanted to offer my condolences. In 2010 I had yard rats (squirrels) REALLY bad and they ate about 85% of my tomatoes even the ones that were rock hard green! They would go from tomato to tomato and bite a few chunks. I did eventually get rid of them but not soon enough to get a decent harvest. I won't say how. They came back in small numbers but during the winter a hawk/eagle with an appetite for squirrel moved in!! We live in the city so offering them a lead diet was not allowed. I wish you luck with the smoke bomb.

DL

Thanks for the ideas and the condolences.

I haven't seen the animal -- I am guessing based on the damage and the hole. It's a big hole, at least 6 inches wide, sitting on a raised mound, and it looks like something good and strong dug it. The animal is tall enough to start eating about 8-12 inches off the ground and it eats up to 2 feet high and maybe higher. It's strong enough to knock over the tomato cages to get to the last tomatoes.

Good ideas on fencing! I'll be exploring the options before next spring.

I wonder if there's any point to saving the tomato plants -- if any of the flowers there now might become ripe tomatoes before frost. First frost here is in mid-October on average, though it could be in just a couple weeks.

Oh, and yeah, we have lots of squirrels too. I think they were distracted by our peach tree for most of the summer. We didn't get one peach either. We debated whether or not to keep that tree, but I'm now considering keeping it as squirrel food -- just to distract them from my veggie garden.

I was all in favor of the approach of planting enough to share, but these guys' mamas never taught them how to share. They take it all.

I put up a solar-powered electric fence, which has kept out a couple of resident groundhogs, as well as bunnies, raccoons, etc. They are easy to put up and not very expensive.

Here is a link that might be useful: Electric Fencing

I don't see how anyone could expect a fence to stop an animal that can both tunnel and climb. I know my neighbors 6ft fence ($7k worth) didn't stop the GH living under his shed from tunneling over to my garden.

I have seen people put up a fence with the GH hole is right inside the fence too. Then wonder why it didn't work. Just sayin...

That's one reason why electric fencing can be a good solution. Mine is 30" tall and cost a few hundred dollars. The critters approach the fence, get zapped a few times, and stay away.

Mine cost $19.99, plus wiring, posts, and wire holders, maybe $100. There are two things that help

1) smearing peanut butter on the wire occasionally keeps their memory fresh. I have not had a break-in by a mature groundhog or rabbit in years. It is always the juveniles born in summer because

2) when the ground is dry, the electric fence fails. Next year I will put a ground wire under the fence all around the perimeter.

it is just such a situation that terriers were bred for.

never got a ripe tomato till Mr. pup came to stay.....

"I don't see how anyone could expect a fence to stop an animal that can both tunnel and climb. I know my neighbors 6ft fence ($7k worth) didn't stop the GH living under his shed from tunneling over to my garden."

Yes, they are good diggers. I had one, and it dug a hole under the garden fence... but then I knew where to put the trap.
{{gwi:12013}}

I feel your pain. After several years of advising folks to nail hardware cloth to the bottom of their raised bed boxes, I apparently neglected to do one. Sure nuf, a mole/vole or digging critter found out.

Sooo - by the time I unloaded all of the soil in the box, I found the box was beginning to rot anyway. I had a spare box that I was using to make compost in over the preceding months, and so used it to replace the rotting one. You can bet I made sure to nail a piece of hardware cloth on the bottom of the new one.

When will I ever learn???

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

Barn kitties get rid of all garden pests...except deer. Bee balm is great for keeping the deer out of a smaller crop. My purple raspberries have been untouched, since I planted bee balm around them. It's pretty and deer don't eat it :)

Good luck with your garden next year...and do try a barn kitty. Just be sure to feed them, as they hunt better when it's sport, not for food.

Thank you so much for all the helpful answers! Lot of options to explore.

I do have a cat who hunts - mice and moles and birds. If she tangled with a groundhog as big as ours apparently is (I found some big muddy pawprints 2 feet up a tomato plant since the last time I wrote), I'm not sure who would win. I'm on my own with this one.

Our cat and groundhog are on friendly terms. They twitch hello to each other in passing.

1dahlia -

If you life in Fairfax County there are ordinances concerning groundhogs. If you trap a groundhog you HAVE to put it down. You cannot transport it to another location within the county.

If you are squeamish about putting a GH down, there are people who will do it for you - for a price. It can get expensive as groundhogs have families. If there's one, there's usually more than one.

Cindy

I knew where the hole was but couldn't get the critter to go in the trap for the life of me. Which makes me think he had been in a trap before.

Cindy, that's interesting. I'm not in Fairfax but I'm close. I'm trying to get up the nerve to smoke bomb the hole, but I really hate killing animals. I expect to get there eventually.

glib, my fence is grounded by a 3-foot-long metal stake that comes with the kit and is driven into the ground. No additional grounding needed. Fence is about 300 feet long. Wet or dry, it zaps.

1dahlia4me, they really are easy to install. I put mine up in a couple of hours. Worth a thought before you go in for traps and smoke bombs.

Nygardener, I will definitely look into that, and I really appreciate you posting that information. I do need to get these guys out anyway though, one way or another. They're doing significant damage. Noticed another mound and a new hole this morning.

You can stop groundhogs with a nonelectrified fence (and we did for years back in NJ).

You need to bury around a foot of the bottom and make sure the top part is good and floppy.
-ExNjer

Yes, my arrangement is the same, but it is a fact the break-ins are always during dry weather. It is possible that it is not the ground per se, but rather the critter is standing on wood chips or grass that conduct only when wet.

The more tunnels they dig the harder it is to be rid of them as each year another will find one of the holes, even after I filled mine in more came the next year.

If it's any consolation you will never see the critter after using the smoke bomb. Another thing I have luck w/sometimes is using fox urine. Fox and GH are natural enemies tho sometimes it doesn't work. So you could use the fox urine then the smoke bombs?

When I put out the traps I get everything except a GH. :(

nygardener,

is your fence the strands or the netting? The premier site seems to imply that the strands won't keep out smaller animals, but the 3" netting seems quite a bit more expensive.

I'm really interested to hear more about your setup, after having rabbits and groundhogs foil my fence this year and deer chomp the few tomatoes I stupidly planted outside it (the garden annex!)

I'll obviously be redesigning my fence next year (and expanding the garden) and I'm having a hard time figuring out the groundhog-proofing.

Thanks!

~emmers

Mine's netting. I got the 30" VersaNet fence with PRS-50 solar energizer. My garden's about 320' around, so I bought two lengths of 164' fencing. I got green posts and green netting, which looks nicer than black. The kit contains a 3-foot-long grounding stake and several green PowerPosts, which are more rugged than those built in-line into the netting. I'd recommend getting their new "Plus" version of the netting, which has the posts closer together (so the netting doesn't sag), or else an equivalent number of extra PowerPosts. I also got a digital voltmeter to check the fence charge.

Setup is very easy: you just push the posts into the ground, clip the metal leads of the nets together, drive in the grounding stake, and attach the energizer to the fence and the stake. A cylindrical fence-post driver you can buy at a hardware store for about $20 works fine for banging in the grounding stake.

The biggest hassle is having to keep the grass touching the fence fairly short (about 4" or less), because otherwise wet grass draws off charge from the fence and makes it less repellent to critters. Pulling up the fence and mowing every two weeks is enough. If you want a little more slack, you can get a more-powerful energizer; they also come in a version with a larger solar panel, good for year-round use. Some people use herbicides to remove the grass under the fence permanently, but that wasn't something I wanted near a vegetable garden.

I chose the 30" version because there are also deer nearby and the occasional cow (escaped from neighboring farm). You could try the 20" model, which is also easier to step over.

Of course a deer could easily jump over either, and a groundhog could tolerate being zapped without injury. The idea is that the animal approaches the net cautiously, gets shocked once or twice, and opts to seek out another salad bar. It's worked for two seasons, knock wood. Before I put it up I lost several beds of lettuce, broccoli, spinach, corn, etc. in raids by various creatures.

Feel free to ask more questions. I'm happy and relieved it's worked.

Here is a link that might be useful: Electric Fencing