There were bite marks on the eggplant. Big ones! Now, if I had to share something in the garden, it probably would be the eggplant. I'm running out of ideas for how to prepare it. But, still, I knew that whatever ate the eggplant would move on to other vegetables soon (when it got as tired of eggplant as I am). So, I pulled out our Havahart Live Animal Trap. I set the trap up inside the garden, and for bait I used peanut butter and sunflower seeds. Within a couple of hours, my dogs were barking by the garden. We had caught a squirrel!
I put the cage in a large garbage bag and put it in my car. Then I drove to a nearby park and released the squirrel.
So, I wondered, how many of his friends and family also know about the garden? I set the trap up again, using the same kind of bait. The next morning, there was a rat inside!
I went to the same park where I had taken the squirrel and released the rat.
By this point, I was starting to panic. How long would this go on? I set the trap up again with more peanut butter and sunflower seeds. Fortunately, it's now been about 5 days, and we haven't caught any more animals. Nor have there been any more bite marks on our garden vegetables. Mission accomplished--I hope!
We did have one other garden visitor, but it didn't cause any visible damage. I don't know it's technical name, so I'll call it a leaf bug.
I found it sitting on a cherry tomato branch. By the time I put my camera away after taking its picture, the leaf bug was gone.
Despite all the unwanted guests, the garden is still producing lots of vegetables. Check out these beautiful red bell peppers.
We used them to make delicious chicken fajitas.
This past week we also harvested lots of tomatoes, eggplant and basil. I made Roasted Tomato Basil Soup and Eggplant Gratin. Both of these awesome recipes are from Ina Garten and are posted on www.foodnetwork.com. I also harvested Swiss chard to make Lean Lasagna (www.epicurious.com). The recipe called for tomato sauce which I made from our homegrown Roma tomatoes. Yum!