Racoons

Success! In past years the racoons have completely destroyed my peach crop by climbing up into the trees and literally breaking off every bearing limb overnight, devouring the peaches in one sitting the night before I was planning to harvest them. This year I rigged up a 2-wire electric fence, (super minimalist) around the trees and seem to have succeeded in control completely. I used short lengths of plastic electrical conduit, (much cheaper than the official plastic fence posts sold for cattle fencing), with a layer of the twisted plastic electrical fence material with thin wires wound into it, at 6" off the ground, and another at 12". (Raccoons are excellent climbers, but can't jump, and so one does not need much in the way of height). Hitched to a regular electric fencer this seems to have solved this particular problem. I did not include a ground wire(s), and it appears that it is not necessary.
Now, if I could find a similarly simple solution to the squirrels...
(Did you know that the French word for racoon is "raton laveur", literally "washing rat". Certainly akin to the common epithet applied to "tree rats" )



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2012 02:50AM by David Maxwell.

Pleased to read that, David, and even more so after seeing the little trees in question...
But I am a bit surprised that your peaches ripen so late - when we were in the Annapolis valley last month the peaches were already ripe there. Are your varieties that late?

No. The Reliance peaches ripened about August 20; The Redhavens weren't ripe until Sept. 1. In general freestone varieties are later than the clingstones in any case. (Both Relance and Redhaven are freestone).