A Prairie Home Companion from American Public Media: First Person

Garden Vigilantes
By Leesa Lawson
Email: leesalawson at comcast dot net
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March 27, 2008

I don't like generalizations, but here goes: Gardeners are nurturers. Tending and turning the soil, nursing fledgling plants through disease and drought, they have an abiding respect for life. Yet, at every garden gathering, the topic turns to pests and how to dispense with them. It starts with slugs, then moves up the food chain. One woman shared her foolproof method for catching voles: bait a mousetrap with peanut butter and place the trap near their hole. Cover the trap with an overturned flowerpot to simulate the vole's dark den. The peanut butter lures these late-night snackers faster than a pack of Hostess Twinkies draws my husband off the sofa during a football game. Then comes the sound of success: smack, followed by a few helpless heaving thumps against the sealed death chamber. "Does it work on chipmunks?" asks a fellow gardener. "Well, it doesn't kill them, but we have a pond nearby and guess what?" "What?" we ask in unison. "Chipmunks can't swim." A churlish grin. Heads nod in approval.

On to bigger game. "A garden hose attached to your car exhaust pipe shoved into a raccoon's den works nicely," one woman says. She sat in her car listening to All Things Considered as she asphyxiated a whole family who had devoured her sweet corn. One gardener asks, "Why didn't you just use a Havahart^TM trap and relocate them?" Turns out game, at risk for carrying rabies, cannot be transported, so she was forced to dispense with these raccoons while listening to the news. Everyone pats her on the back as we marvel at her ingenuity, her effective use of time, and her ability to multitask. The group casts a collective glance of disdain at the gardener who questioned this brilliant tactical maneuver.

Another woman offers a flamb forget-me-not: add two parts lighter fluid to one part gasoline in a soda can. Stuff a rag into the opening, light, lob and take cover. "Wait," says a retired firefighter, "you don't need both lighter fluid and gasoline. One would be enough." "But the lighter fluid makes a really big bang," she says. Finally, the biggest game of all: deer. "There's something that works every time," one man says. We move closer to him. He lifts his hand in the air, makes the shape of a gun, takes aim, and his air gun kicks back from the force of the shot. He brings his smoking weapon to his mouth and blows.

Among gardeners, there's a begrudging admiration for every critter's determination. But, at the other end of the weapon of their choice, there's an equally determined gardener. So we begin again, to devise new ways to nurture the life we love and murder what we don't.

About the author:
I'm an advertising copywriter and master gardener battling copy deadlines, slugs, voles and woodchucks on an acre in Collinsville, Connecticut.