carla murphy wrote:Wondering how I can import a snake or two into our 1/4 acre suburban backyard. Any suggestions? We have a problem with rats and mice. I keep trapping them, they keep coming. Our compost pile is a perfect habitat for them. We've stopped putting food waste in there (built a secured worm/black soldier fly habitat that takes the food waste) but the rats are already here. They hang out in our orange tree, eating the green fruit. They stare at me from our sweet potato vines. They scurry out of our 'hay barn' (only holds 11 bales of hay) and poop in our goat shed. We got no fruit from our fruit trees this year. The trees produced, but the varmits got all the fruit before it was even ripe. 16 five year old fruit trees of different varieties. We planted for successive harvest and the varmits just moved from one tree to the next. Now the seedling starts in the greenhouse are being topped and the 3ft tree collard plant has been stripped to just its trunk.
You might try putting something to slippery to climb (like metal duct pipe) around the trunk of the trees just at fruiting time.
