Whats digging up my veggie patch?

PhoneGuru

I've come out in the last few mornings to find the sides of my raised beds have been dug out. Something's obviously been having a snuffle. Luckily it hasn't disturbed any of the plants, its obviously been after the bugs or something.

Any ideas? Hedgehog maybe?

Primrose

Quite possibly a hedgehog. They're having a difficult time of it at the moment with the dry weather trying to forage for slugs and worms and are having to dig deeper to try and find anyting to keep themselves alive. Look for their little black turds in your garden - that might give you a clue. If you put out a saucer of meat based cat food near your veggie patch before you go to bed, they'll be very grateful and probably leave your vegetable patch alone.

wssla00

I also get squirrels having a dig over..... Bird food and nuts out for all so they can eat that rather than my plants!

morg_monster

Can I ask, how deep was the hole? I had something digging a hole in my raised bed this weekend, the hole was about 6-8" in diameter and down about 10-12" to the true soil level of the garden. It was a very neat round hole and although it didn't damage anything nearby as it was in the only "gap" in the bed, the plants behind got covered in soil that presumably came out of the hole!
I have presumed my visitor was a cat - really annoying as our cats are great in the garden and don't dig at all, but they are shut in at night which is when this hole appeared. After filling it in on saturday morning, it reappeared on sunday, but the odd thing is there was no poo there - and the hole wasn't filled in at all - two things I would expect a cat to do. with the size of it I wondered about a fox, but I would expect much more damage to the plants around it. cats are much more lightfooted.
Anyway I filled it up again, stick a load of sticks wherver there was bare soil, and this morning it was undisturbed. just would like to know what exactly it was!

PhoneGuru

The hole was at the edge of the raised bed, right at the wood in the corner and others in the sides. They were only about 3" deep.

laurel7172

Birds having dust baths? They can be awfully messy and shift a lot of soil.

I'd been wondering what was exposing the roots of my squashes, and it turned out to be a thrush having a good dig under the leaves.

PhoneGuru

Do they do this at night?

ladylouise62

I left the little 'door' off my compost bin the other day after digging a bit out, and saw a hedgehog that night, inside, making a nice mess by digging-out compost. It has been dry and I've seen few slugs/snails this year so I reckon they are having to dig hard this year to feed themselves. A bit of dog food where you know they've been (better than Cat I believe), definitely no milk and it could help then and stop so much digging :-)