How do I know when corn is ready??

[secuono]

A cat would equal every 3mo I buy a new cat and scrape the old one off the road. So no, getting a cat is never the answer unless you live literally in no where.
We have poison out in the basement, but all our animals eat mice, dogs, cats, chickens, ducks. Massive risk, but the fleas are insane.

I need a way to keep mice off the corn, is there any spray that works?
Traps do not work outside, only randomly inside the house.


Corn tasted like....vegitables....so idk. I don't like greens, so that's what it tasted like. Though I do like corn, it just wasn't sweet or anything...idk...

 

[secuono]

 

[Ridgerunner]

Are you absolutely sure it is mice? I had grasshoppers eat the silks off the corn and then eat a lot of the ripening corn off the cob. The way it looked, you would think it was mice. With our drought, the grasshoppers congregated on anything green, like my watered garden.

The grasshoppers would start at the silk end and eat an area clean to the cob maybe 1/4 to 1/2 the circumference of the corn ear, often going more than half way down the ear. I've had other insects eat the corn up at the silk end, but they did not eat it as cleanly all the way to the cob as the grasshoppers.

The grasshopper damage kind of looked like that ear on the upper left except it was usually a lot worse than that photo. If you can see the yellow corn before you removed it from the plant, it's not likely to be grasshoppers, but I'd question if it were mice either. If they just ate the husks and not the corn underneath, I'd think it was some kind of insect, not a mammal, but I don't know of any insect that would prefer the husks over the corn unless maybe it was old damage, eaten before the corn developed?

 

[secuono]

No, it's all new damage. One day they were perfect, next they were chewed. So I panicked and asked when they were ready. By the time I picked them, there were others that were chewed.
I knew it was mice as soon as the tomato I picked has mice nibbles on one side. We have lots of mice, dog always pounces around for them in the garden, she could care less about bugs.
And there is no drought here now, had one a month or more ago, but now it rains 1x a week or so.
We've got a lot of those yellow zipper spiders, I mean a lot!!! They do a good job catching w/e flies/hops into their webs while we squeal and just want them to go away. They're poisonous, huge and have a freaky wiggle dance...ew.

 

[897tgigvib]

Mouse traps in the garden. Lots of them. A small dollop of jelly on the doohicky for bait. Get like 20 or 30 of those cheap little regular mouse traps.

 

[desertlady]

Mouse traps in the garden. Lots of them. A small dollop of jelly on the doohicky for bait. Get like 20 or 30 of those cheap little regular mouse traps.

That will be funny when we can hear bunch of them going off at night ! snap, snap snap!!!

 

[897tgigvib]

Actually, with the poor little mouse getting thumped, there is not much sound. To me it's a really sad thing...

 

[desertlady]

Actually, with the poor little mouse getting thumped, there is not much sound. To me it's a really sad thing...

I know ! I hate killing little creatures, But when they do damage , what can you do ??

 

[897tgigvib]

I know. I tried repellent. It worked for a couple weeks. (Vole repellent). Wish there was a better way. To them the garden is like a gourmet goodies place.

 

[Mickey328]

My mama taught me this and I've found it to work well for me. When the silk gets brown and withered, pull back the husk a bit. If the rows are complete, pop one of them with your thumbnail. If a sweet milky fluid comes out, get the pot on the stove! LOL If the liquid coming out is clear, it needs more time on the stalk, and if the rows are really uneven and not filled...also more time on the stalk.