I have Oceans Eleven being enacted in my garden. I’ve got just nineteen pea seeds up so far this year! I thought it might be birds getting them before they germinated, so I put some net over the boxes in the shadehouse. But they still got got. So I moved the boxes out into one of my fortress fenced garden beds. But they still got got. So I planted all the seeds in pots, inside the bucket (so they don’t drown) in the middle of this little kids’ pool, with fairly fine wire over the top. But, on the very first night after planting, long before they germinated, they still got got!!
Something that can swim, climb, get through wire, find the seeds underground, then get away again. Any guesses?
little mice? We have the exact same problem, they ate seeds in the ground, in the new seed house (I thought it was mouse proffe), and all the sunflower sprouts – seam to love the new little shouts. They ate 40 broadbeen seeds last week! The only solution has been to cover the seed trays with old sheets of glass. Good luck, they are driving me crazy.
Alice
A fine mystery!…….a rat maybe?
Rats or mice, I’d say. They can swim a bit and squeeze down the side of the wire. I raise my peas in the ground with a llitre yoghurt container (with the bottom cut out) upended over each one and this seems to work for me. Your rats and mice are obvioulsy cleverer than the ones I get around here so you might need to leave the container with its bottom still in. But that might mean the seeds get a bit sweaty if the sun comes out?
You culprit is the Mexican Bean Beetle. Why? Even though only a movie, Brad Pitt learnt a lot about this kind of theft while starring in Oceans Eleven. He also stared in the movie The Mexican, shot it Mexico. Are you seeing the connection?
I know just how you feel! Raised about 40 pea plants, planted them out and two days later 30 of them had disappeared off the face of the earth. Aaargh!
We have had mice in our garden and house this year, which is rare, so it could have been mice in my case. Have got a mice plague in SA this year.
It’s time for a surveillance camera.. 🙂
Same problems here 🙁 my peas basically grew themselves last year, this year they and the brassicas keep getting nibbled right down to the ground. So frustrating!!
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