January 12, 2006

Porcupines are amongst the most destructive critters to visit the garden let alone make a home in it and they are also extremely difficult to deter.

There is something about a gleaming new pair of secateurs that brings out the murderous devil which is normally kept hidden deep inside my gardening self.

As soon as I saw this particular pair, bright orange handles catching the light, wickedly curved blades pleading to be let loose from the showcase they were in, then I just had to have them.

They were literally screaming at me to bring them home and give them a chance to do the work for which they were designed. The price tag was very reasonable indeed, a mere Rs350. Far cheaper than my extra-special, ultra-expensive, red handled ones, with a marvelous ratchet device included to do away with the need for sheer muscle power when tackling heavy work, which cost an astounding Rs1,350 almost four years ago and which I keep only for pruning my precious fruit trees.

I weighed them in my greedy hands, discussed the pros and cons of other pairs ranging in price from Rs250 up to Rs1,550 for a silver streaked fantasy that even I couldn’t dream of owning, ferociously arguing over the price all the while and got it reduced to Rs300. I emerged from the store with my hands literally itching to get home and get to work.

I swear that every single prunable plant in the garden held its breath and shrunk into itself with fear as I triumphantly set about finishing putting the garden to bed for the winter.

This annual task is usually completed by mid-December at the latest but this year I was running behind schedule this time. So with one eye on the weather and the other on the clock, I added a warm waistcoat to the two sweaters I was already wearing. Donned a tattered pair of work gloves and strode out into the late afternoon sunlight brandishing my deadly weapon.

Mornings are for housework and cooking, afternoons are for gardening, evenings for writing but, somehow or other, when I most need to be out in the garden something else always seems to crop up.

The fruit trees had already been pruned to my satisfaction. They are always the first to be done in case the snow catches me out and blankets them with freezing white stuff which inevitably manages to shower down the back of my neck if I even attempt to reach out for a branch to prune. I learnt this one the hard way and it wasn’t much fun…so the trees are first as many of the other things to be cut back can actually hold over until spring if necessary. Must get my priorities right!

Starting right at the very bottom of the garden where my guardian plant fairies live, I tackled the giant, dried out remains of a patch of aniseed, the seed gathered in for household use quite some time ago.

My new secateurs cut through them like a hot knife through butter and, in no time at all, I was waist deep in the fragrant stuff and had to fight my way back through it then gather it up, chop it some more and haul it off to the compost bin. Dried out hollyhock stalks quickly followed as did wild rose prunings and overgrown blackberry stems.

Moving up a level, there are five terraces to the garden, iceberg roses, broad leaf sage, straggling thyme, some errant rosemary branches, old canna lily stems, gone to seed gaillardia, rudbeckia and feverfew all followed suit.

I was well into my stride now, face glowing with the effort, with the sheer unadulterated pleasure of a job being well done, when I found ‘it’ and ground to a horrified halt.

A huge excavation job right in the middle of my precious comfrey bed! A very determined, very sneaky member of my number one enemy tribe had not only raided the garden but had the audacity to actually take up residence when I hadn’t been looking.

This was definitely the recently tunneled home of a beastie I have come to loath when it invades my sanctuary. I had wrongly thought that I had finally, after years of intensive battle, fenced them completely out but, obviously not, as a porcupine has moved in!

These are amongst the most destructive critters to visit my garden let alone make a home in it and they are also extremely difficult to deter. I do not like to use poison, even porcupines have a right to dignity and, besides this, another animal, a flying squirrel for example or a bird may take the bait instead.

The only way to kill a porcupine outright, other than run it over with a car, is to shoot it in the nose, probably with a silver bullet at that!

Furthermore, they are nocturnal creatures and I have no intention of freezing to death in the middle of a winter night in the mountains, torch in one hand, gun in the other, waiting to target something as small as a porcupine’s nose. No way!

But….something has to be done as the porcupines first developed a taste for comfrey roots about four winters, or rather ‘springs’ ago, when there was little other food around and I suppose they are feeling peckish earlier this time as there was very little fruit to be had anywhere in this area due to a year of bad crop failures all round.

Also, the local pyromaniacs are heavily involved in their annual madness of burning every bit of forest undergrowth in sight. “To improve next years grass” they always claim even though they have few grazing animals left. Just a couple of days ago the entire mountainside was ablaze from early morning until late at night and, it is highly possible that this brave porcupine decided to take refuge in the only safe place it could think of at the time….my garden.

This is dangerous. I am starting to feel sorry for it the poor little, well not so little, thing. How can I kill it?

I checked all around the boundary fences, rather a difficult task as they are planted with all sorts of prickly things, wild roses, blackberries, berberris, all purposefully grown as a barrier against marauders of the two and four footed variety but, no porcupine entrance in sight and, even if there was, the problem is how to get it to vacate the premises now that it is most evidently in.

The only thing to do is to devise a trap, catch it then let it go on some other, unburnt part of the mountain, before it moves on to devour the winter mooli crop, the giant red mustard, rutabaga, late carrots and my already endangered rhubarb roots.

My brand new secateurs, cleaned and oiled, are back in their crinkly plastic packet whilst I scratch my head and try to devise a large enough, strong enough, cage type trap along with a way to entice the enemy into it. Ideas anyone? !!! n

Send your gardening queries at zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Answers will appear in a future issue of ‘The Review’.

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