Gardening where I live, part 117: Last night I was reading at the kitchen table when a brown blur crossed my peripheral vision.
A moving brown blur. A really big brown blur.
Turned my head to the left and yep, a cow moose was walking into our yard, followed by a tottery little calf. Right toward our garden full of young quinoa, lettuce, celery, tomatoes, strawberries and other plants.
Baby wouldn’t touch the stuff at this age, but mama has to consume enough calories to stay alive, defend herself and the calf, and produce milk. Our yard would be the equivalent of a salad bar.
“Moose!” I yelled to DF, then hustled for the dynamite whistle. He was faster than I am, and had already opened the door to yell, “GET OUTTA THERE! GO ON, GET!”
Mama moose quickly turned and herded her young ’un out of the yard and across the cul-de-sac When they were long gone, I went back to reading.
Except a few minutes later I caught a glimpse of another brown blur. A solo brown blur, too small to be a mama and too tall to be the baby we just saw.
It was maybe a year old, with no mama in sight – maybe she was hit by a car – and its ears were swiveling like radar dishes. The neighbor’s Jack Russell terrier may have been at the window, barking hysterically. Sometimes even a yappy dog is good for something.
Moose on the loose
Ultimately this critter trotted off, too, toward the main road. I hoped none of the ungulates would return overnight, while we slept, to vacuum up our bedding plants.
The weather at that time was rainy and blustery. DF theorized that maybe the mama was trying to find a quiet place to bed down, out of the worst of the blow. Fine with me, as long as it was somewhere else. I stayed up later than I’d planned, keeping an eye out and hoping that the moose had found some nice, quiet greenbelt.
DF has a plan to fence off the side yard to at least deter future moose. But nothing will keep them out except a fence taller than six feet – and even then a moose can potentially vault over it. “If it’s motivated,” DF says.
I don’t want it to be motivated. I want it to be gone. I want it to be out in the woods or the nearby bog, browsing on willow and aquatic plants the way Nature intended.
When humans settled the area and started putting in gardens, we permanently distracted a whole lotta Alces alces, which hang around Anchorage neighborhoods to eat ornamental and fruit trees, shrubs and, yeah, vegetable gardens.
Flower gardens, too. A photographer I know noticed her tulips had reached the peak of perfection and planned to shoot them when she got home. But when she did, she found that a moose had chewed them right down to the ground. Those darned opportunistic ungulates.
Of moose and men
Sometimes animal-lovers say, “Hey, the moose were here first!” Yes, they were. But as of 1915, when the United States government decided to build a railroad, the Anchorage area became a permanent human settlement. And we never left.
Bears were here, too. But humans, intent on carving out homesteads and a railroad line – and keeping their chickens and their children alive – shot at enough of the animals to warn them to keep their distance. In this case, we were the apex predators.
Like moose, the bruins are still here; both black and grizzly bears live in Anchorage. We coexist somewhat uneasily. The front page story of today’s newspaper was about the one-year anniversary of the death of a 16-year-old boy in a competitive hill-climb race. He texted a family member that a bear was following him. Searchers found the teen dead*, with a black bear circling his body.
Point is, people live here now. The animals will have to move on, or at least keep back. Alaska is enormous, and willows grow in a lot of places. Quinoa, however, grows only in our yard.
Okay, readers, it’s your turn: What are your worst garden pests? Deer? Gophers? Slugs? Rabbits? Vegans?
Related reading:
- Grizzly bears are moving through town
- The marvel of an Alaska summer
- Br’er Rabbit and Br’er Bear, Alaska style
*This link is to the previous year’s coverage. These days you need to subscribe to the paper to read current news online.
Oh, and the photo above isn’t the moose in the story. That’s an older picture that I shot through a window.
Oh, Boy! I yell at our deer, cover small plants with wire to defeat the birds, and have a 6 foot fence around the actual garden. And, breathe a sigh of relief when the garden finally is harvested. However, I’ve given up on flowers – we decided we would actually rather have the deer. I don’t think I would prefer moose, though!
Sometimes you can’t chase moose away with a yell, or even a dynamite whistle. Sometimes they leave when they’re full.
Fun fact: Moose are the largest members of the deer family. #themoreyouknow
Iguanas! I am in South Florida and we have plenty of them. They have taken chunks out of our mangoes, avocados, pineapples, peppers, cucumbers, and strawberries. We’ve tried enclosing our garden beds, but they dig under the wire. My husband has just about given up on gardening. The worst has been pineapples, because they take about a year to grow. Once they’ve been about ready to pick, we usually find a big chunk missing!
Mice and rabbits. Mice dig up the seeds before they come up and rabbits clean things up after they come up (sigh).
We’ve got a combination of garden pests. We put up fences with wood along the top, which discouraged the deer, but we’ve still got rabbits, rodents & insects. I prefer organic gardening, which probably makes our garden more attractive, compared to the neighbor’s. 😛
On another blog I follow, last year a moose destroyed her garden near her home. She said they remember and will come back. I am the worst pest in the garden, really have a hard time growing just tomatoes. No problem with cherry tomatoes but the regular size ones get black rot or blight almost every year. I keep trying though.
Worst problem by far are the deer…They can destroy a garden in an evening…it is heartbreaking…AND I just found out the “fine folks” up the street are FEEDING them field corn…That’s just swell! We have put up a 4 foot fence around the garden…keeps out the “lazy deer”… But it’s just exercise for the more athletic. But after hearing the story of the moose in your neck of the woods…makes our problem seem small in comparison.
As for Cheryl with “Bottom end rot”…. I had this problem and placed ground up egg shells in the hole when planting the tomatoes and supplemented thru the year. It really helped.
Corn is NOT what they should be eating. Is there a state fish and game service to which you could report this behavior?
Up here they say “a fed bear is a dead bear.” The same could hold true for deer: If they’re cruising through the suburbs vs. hanging out in the woods, their chances of getting hit by cars go way, way up.
Thanks, I started using bone meal and it has helped.
I live in southern Massachusetts. My husband and I saw a fisher cat last week on the street near my son’s school, scared me, never saw one before until then, but I knew what they look like (google if you’ve never seen one). My parents get wild turkeys, deer and sometimes foxes and coyotes in their area.
The giant African snail. Ugh. Eats everything. Disgusting. Procreates prolifically. Hundreds per year. And can give you meningitis. Lovely.
Had to give up last year. Starting again with plants that might be resistant. So gross.
Eeewww. My condolences.
Rats. They climb the tomato plants, take a big juicy bite out, and then plop to the ground. Rats are why we encouraged a big, beautiful king snake to keep living in our side yard.
The other varmint was our puppy, who last year developed a liking for ripe figs and would test the figs with her teeth for a few days before determining they were ripe. Found lots of figs with tiny tooth scrapes on them.
Another blogger from Alaska just posted yesterday about having to give up on her garden this year as she can’t afford a 12′ high fence to keep out the moose that has been trampling on her garden!
My father used to plant thousands of bulbs each year but said it was mostly like supplying a salad bar for the rabbits, squirrels and moles!
I live in an apt. in the middle of a city of 3 million people but I back onto a conservation area and we have deer, raccoons, squirrels, fox and coyote. Another large park near me has an allotment garden area but the gardens are surrounded by 6′ fences which seems to help at least keep out some of the critters!
I just blows my mind at the picture with cold stuff on the ground in the middle of June!! I would freak at any animals whew!
Actually that was a photo taken previously (last fall, I think). The moose we chased out didn’t stick around for photo opps.
And yeah, moose are pretty formidable up close. Or even from a distance.