What's ate my broccoli???

11 years ago

It's December, and we recently got back from vacation and went to check on our garden. We currently have several broccoli and cauliflower plants. about 3 of the broccoli plants have started to grow florets.

Anyways, we go out to check, and nearly all the broccoli plants have had the florets eaten away. none of the leaves were eaten except for what was right around the floret. None of the cauliflower had been touched, but none of it has flowered either.

The patterns where they were eaten from have 'grooves' which I can only assume are the teeth marks of the animal that ate them, almost appears to be scraped away, instead of bitten clean off.

The plants are in a garden box up off the ground, are the parts eaten are about 3-4 feet off the ground.

I've never seen rabbits in the area. We do have plenty of squirrels. And there are definitely deer in the woods surrounding the area, but I've not seen any actually in the subdivision where we live. We also have coyote in the area woods.

I live in NW Hillsborough county.

Comments (7)

stuartwanda
11 years ago
Looks like you need to fence your garden from any of the animals you posted. Did you see and foot prints? That could posibly tell you what did it.
ocalagirls
11 years ago
This same thing happened to me. I've never has any problem growing broccoli until this year. I was perplexed until I saw a squirrel sitting in a crepe myrtle munching on my broccoli! They didn't touch any other plants.
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thetradition
11 years ago
I would be murdering some squirrels if that happened to my broccoli...
cfldoc 9b Lake County
11 years ago
Well I hate to suggest this one. Had the same thing happen to me for the first time this year. I was sure it had to be squirrels. Had to buy a game camera to figure it out. Guess the neighbor's bird feeders attracted them.....rats. Had to use D-con. Creepy.
carolb_w_fl_coastal_9b
11 years ago
I lost all my broccoli this year to possums - it took me awhile to figure that out too & by that time they were completely stripped of leaves, before the heads could even form. I had posted about this previously.

They were starting to go after my tomatoes, so I did a bit of web research & now I have a floodlight shining on the tomato bed every night, which has been a success so far - possums avoid bright lights - but they've still been stripping tomatoes from a couple of plants nearby, out of range of the floodlight.

I know it's not rats because the bait stations I filled have not been touched for months now.

FWIW/HTH
ginia_2009
11 years ago
Exactly the same thing happened to me. At first I thought it was squirrels, but I garden in pots inside a dog pen. It works great, by the way. I knew it had to be rats, as that's the only varmint that can get in. Also ended up having to use Dcon. They got wise to the traps. They also eat tomatoes. Good luck.
mocropot
11 years ago
Did anybody try to use the mint plants around their vegetable garden? I was told mint serves as a repellent because rats cannot stand the mint oil, not sure if it is a true info.