I'm going to buy a gun!

Oh dear Gattina, I could cry for you..I know how you like them and it's just not fair.! Have they stuck to this part of the garden?

I've not much knowledge on porcupine repelling...well none in fact. Can just offer my sympathy xxx

the bushmen in africa catch them for food very carefully and are a deolacassy excuse my spelling . they are infact rodents but sorry to say are amazing diggers to . sorry about your lovley garden . can you get a fence buried at 45 degrees pointing outwards and a couple of feet tall as thet should stop them but make it thick wire as rodent teeth are quit amazing things .hope your well apart from that xx .

That is just awfull !!! makes my rabbits seem almost plant friendly. I know sympathy wont help your plants but you sure deserve it.

What a terrible shame Gattina, I am so sorry. Don't know what to say really, can you find out what sort of things they don't like, or do they chomp through everything.

Well, nothing is supposed to find lavender edible, Cinderella, but they've destroyed it nonetheless in their attempt to find other, more edible stuff. I am going to call another neighbour who's roses get eaten by deer and who has an electronic detector that fires blanks. I am just certain, though, that all the cats will be setting it off all night long by wandering into range.
No, so far (fingers crossed) they haven't reached anything else yet, but they wouldn't have to roam very far to find other, tastier food - every single one of my plants and our lawns, too would go very, very quickly, 'cos porcupines, once they find their very own supermarket, stay in the area. I am beside myself with worry and anger and helplessness. Daughter said "Well, you don't have to go to work in the mornings, why not stay up all night and scare them away!" Funny girl. They can be incredibly dangerous animals if confronted.
Thank you all for your sweet comments - it's very comforting that other people can understand how upsetting it is for me.
I've also, just in the last 30 minutes discovered that a water leak from the derelict house next to ours is running underground into our garden, and at three separate places we have developed alga-infected, smelly sumps in the middle of paths and newly planted flower beds. It's not my day. At least a kind neighbour has forced his way into the house and turned everything off at the main stopcock, but if it's coming from the supply pipes, then the water board will have to be called in, and Goodness alone knows what they'll have to start digging up.
Deep sigh.

Oh, Gattina, I am so sorry to read about this. And you had carefully raised and set out all those irises, too. What a shame! I can't offer any constructive help, but you certainly have my sympathy.

Oh no, Gattina, how horrible! I didn't know porcupines were that destructive. Here we have problems with armadillos. They don't eat plants, but they dig huge tunnels through lawns and gardens to search for grubs and worms. Virtually impossible to trap them.

I have tried repellents for various creatures and have found that very few of them actually work.

Gattina, really sorry to hear ... you have my sympathy for all its worth, I can just imagine how angry you feel after having grown plants from seed and cuttings - all to be destroyed in one night.

I just did a quick search on google ... found this page:
http://www.ehow.com/how_8221877_rid-porcupines-digging-up-yard.html

not sure any of it works but maybe worth a try?

Oh Gattina, I can only offer sympathy but do know that its very upsetting after all your hard work, obviously I know nothing about the pesky creatures so cannot offer any advice but do hope you do get some help from somewhere...

I've just been speaking to our friend Luciano, who was shaking his head and confirming that it WAS porcupines, and saying that there are increasing numbers and that they are causing immense damage in the area, not only to people's gardens, and smallholdings, but to crops, and that down towards the plain where great fields of grain (notably maize) is grown, the losses have been dreadful. You can shoot them, but it means sitting up nursing a rifle night after night, as they are skittish and only come into a garden or field on a whim. The only thing one can do, apparently, is sprinkle diesel or naphthalene along the boundaries of one's garden, so the smell deters them, or install an expensive alarm system, which they will just walk round. If there are fruit trees (oh, yes, fifteen expensive 6 to 10 year old rare varieties painstakingly imported from England and just beginning to come into full harvest) they will strip the bark and pull down and break branches to get the fruit. Can one buy naphthalene any more? If night the sky is lit up and visible from Manchester, it's because something has detonated the diesel! Just googled it, and naphthalene is toxic to cats and dogs, so that's out!
Blimey, if the earthquakes don't get you, blowing up the bl***y porcupines will!
On a slightly more positive note, the flow of water from next door's derelict house seems to have stopped, and "within a week" all should be back to normal and dried out. Except for the floating seedlings and the bad smell, that is.

What a shame , such devistation to have to bear .
If you could get hold of some lion or tiger dung , it is supposed to scare them off , a farmer friend of ours uses it to keep the deer away . ( Not easily come by , I grant !)
I wonder if the quake disturbed the derilict house's pipes ?

How about electric fence?. Industrial amounts of chilli powder?
Oh Gattina as
Jen said we thought rabbits were a problem........

Oh, poor you, Gattina - not your avarage 'pest problem'...:(

I don't know the answer either, but...snares, then roast them in clay comes to mind...

Um, Lion's poo is a bit thin on the ground round here, and I'm not sure it would work on porcupines, as they have virtually no predators - I mean, what in it's right mind would attack one? (apart from me, that is) We have half an acre here, Pam, and the boundaries are long - it would cost hundreds to put up an electric fence, and the top of the drive is so wide it's ungateable (it's everyone's right of way with their tractors and combined harvesters into the fields below) OH is going to get a can full of diesel tonight, and we shall try the old human pee trick to see if it puts them off, then tomorrow put fencing across their obvious tracks up from the fields and trying our best to close off the vegetable garden/orchard. It makes one ask oneself how much value one puts on a few plants and a lawn, some fruit trees and a whole year's worth of vegetables. It's a hard one to answer. Apparently Luciano and his Mum lost every single iris in one night, and paeonies are regarded as porcupine caviar, and I shall be devastated if they get those. The difficulty (well, one of them) is that snares and traps and toxic substances and electric fences will probably clobber our two dozen cats, as well.

porcupines arnt botherd to much bye lions let alone there poo im afraid to say thow pamg may have hit the nail on the head with the electric fence . they use them for sheep . you would have to keep it at the porcupines nose level as the spines wont feal the bolt of electric .i think they only run on 12 volts to . i dont think there realy expensive either . mite be worth ringing a zoo to see how they keep such animals indoors xx .

Oh dear Gattina, & there was me worried about the ants coming into my kitchen!
I dont know what to say except "Gatti Get Your Gun" it might be fun. Ask Sticki if she has a recipe for Porcupine.

Oh Willinilli, I LOVE it - "Gatti get your gun!"
You've all cheered me up immensely. Not so sure about the gun any more, though - you have to jump through so many hoops in order to own one, and they cost an absolute fortune - I could re-stock the garden several times over, and supposing I only winged the poor thing? I'd never forgive myself.
The lady up the hill says she watched as her little porcupine family threaded it's way past her kitchen window and into the woods the other night: Daddy, Mummy and 2 babies. "Aaahhh!" Silly C*w! She should have bazooka'd 'em!
Nosey, you have given me an idea - when we raised the pigs, a couple of years ago, our friends and we shelled out for some very pricey electric fencing, which, now the pigs have gone, as far as I can remember isn't used for anything - unless it now keeps the wild boar out. I shall 'phone her as soon as chicken, duck, turkey and goose bedtime is over and see if it's going begging. In the meantime, industrial amounts of chilli powder are on the shopping list.
In the meantime, OH is busy making the orchard a war zone with great piles of old pallets blocking all the available entrances - See!! Another use for them! I have been plying him with beers, and later tonight, before it gets completely dark, I shall send him out with orders to pee for Britain round our boundary. Poor bloke deserves a medal for services to gardening. And for putting up with a completely mad woman.

What a nightmare for you Gattina, you must be devastated, and heres me moaning about a few slugs! hope you find an answer to your problem, if not take up shooting lessons!!

So sorry to hear this, Gattina!! but it might be better not to kill them - foryou, I mean. If these are killed, sooner or later others will come along and want to try their luck, and so start the ball rolling again. If you can deter them, or give them a bad scare or some kind of shock, they'll learn to stay away, and their kits would learn by example to avoid your place too. Then you'd only h ave to do it once.

He does deserve a medal. Hope all this works for you. And there won't be any new devastation tomorrow. I feel bad for moaning about the slugs now! You are fighting the really tough ones! Goodluck!

Porcupines are radioactive all over Europe, Gattina. So be careful and while shooting, please do not cause another nuclear catastrophe :)))

Isn't it terrible when all your hard work is destroyed like that. I hope you'll be able to protect your garden from the porcupines now.

Bow & Arrow then Gattina, give them a taste of a nasty prick!!!

Are you referring to anyone in particular, Willinilli?
;-))
Katarina, Why are European porcupines supposed to be radioactive? It sounds very alarming! We had a friend with a metal detector come down to see if he could find any treasure in our orchard the other day, and it kept giving out all sorts of screeches and clicks when there was no metal there at all (except a handful of spent and rusty cartridges from WW2) - maybe the porcupines had been trailing fallout!

just remember to keep the electric fence low ie porkupine nose level and this will work on boar as well . i hope your well apart from that x x .

Oh, Gattina! Just caught up with this blog! What you've been going through recently! You must be at your wit's end! I hope that electric fencing IS going begging and that it works for you, meantime if the porcupines find their ways barred with pallets etc. maybe they'll go elsewhere? But then some other poor soul will get their garden damaged! Is there no form of Governmental compensation with proven damage from large predators in Italy? Here, if beehives get turned over by bears, or wolves attack and kill farm animals at least there is the compensation to cover the damage. Doesn't mend the heartbreak, but at least the damage is acknowledged by someone who can maybe do something about it to prevent further damage and further payouts. Hope no more damage was done during last night?

Gattina,

they like salt and usually do this if the soil is rich in salt.

"Saline soils occur when salts accumulate in the soil. Significant salt accumulation is uncommon in areas where rainfall exceeds 20 inches per year "- I found in google.

There are also flowers which are rich in salts, like water lilies. Instead of gun, buy them salt licks and put it far enough from your house. They exist. In my country jaegers take care for that.
I agree, it is very bad surprise to find flowers like this.

Or could it be, that somebody salted the road in the winter to become less slippery?

Bears, Porcupines and Wolves...Makes worrying about the odd rabbit or next doors cat look silly.

Oh don't wish bears on us too, Pims!
Katarina, everyone round here has been having bad problems with these animals, and I don't think it needs salt to attract them - they are after FOOD! Fields and vegetable gardens, and my irises will not have much salt in them, and certainly the roads will have been salted in winter, but if only they would stay with the salty roadsides!!!

Hi Gattina I googled deter porcupines and the deterrents came up 'hot' and 'fear'. The hot could be the dried chilli flakes (lasts longer than powder) maybe you could use it to protect your special plants, they talk about hot wax which contains chilli, mix it with petroleum jelly maybe on the trees?
Wecan buy the flakes in supermarkets and large bags from ethnic shops......hope it helps.....

Beenback to google,. You can buy big bags online.....

Actually, Daughter lives in an ethnic area of Bologna, and she thinks I should be able to find big bags of chilli in the shops there. Good idea of yours with the petroleum jelly mix. We checked first thing this morning, having made the garden like Fort Knox last night, and there have been no signs, but these darned animals are supposed to be unpredictable, and you can't let your guard down for a moment!

Glad to see they have not returned last night. What a thing to have to deal with. Maybe the chilli will do it. Good luck.

id still do the electric fence myself . porcupines are areborial and comr from almost dessert like areas wear theres not a lot on offer . your garden is like a feast to them .

I suppose that farms might be able to claim compensation for spiled crops, but I doubt that gardens would be considered to be in the same cateoory - not "essential for food production". I think I remember you saying a while ago that yours is about the only garden, most of your neighbours grow food, maybe the porcupines are after them and come across yours on the way - no consolatioan, I know! Is there any way that community action can be taken, rather than each person doing their own thing? It might be more effective, and cheaper per person.

I vote for salt licks :))))))))

Glad to hear you had no troubles last night Gattina.
I can just picture you sitting out in a rocking chair on the porch in yor jammies with a 12 bore lent against your knee, Lol.
Sorry, I know its serious but if you dont laugh your cry!

I thought the same, Willinilli, but it's Cccooold out there! If it warms up at all I thought I might go buy mahself some chewing baccy, and the sherriff and I could keep watch!

Spitoon, He He :-!

:o)

That should fritun them therr critturss........

pesky critters lol x .

Make sure you're a crack shot Gatti:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_pit_bull_vs_porcupine.htm

Poor, poor dog.

OMG! OUCH! As you say, Poor, poor dog! How was it not killed or blinded? You can see why we're a tad cautious!

youd need a 12 bore with deer cartridges or a 22 live rifle to kill a porcupine as there realy quit big and the quills themselves must be hard to penetrate . male porcupines must be cautious and have a good aime mating seasen lol x .

LOL! What can we do with you, NP? You are so wicked!

naughty but nice lol xx you got to laugh as its better than crying lol x .

So True! There is a follow-up to this tale. Every evening now, OH goes round the vegetable garden, blocking off all the possible gaps a hungry porcupine could squeeze through with old pallets and railway sleepers. He also blocked the entrance to the greenhouse. Just now, I went to open up the greenhouse, as it's getting a bit hot in there, and, noticing that my cucumber seedlings had burgeoned in the night and were pretty much ready for planting out, I placed the seedtray just outside the door. At that point, the pile of sleepers tipped, fell, and neatly sliced the tops off every single seedling but one. I've come to the conclusion that as a gardener, I'm not exactly Alan Titchmarsh material!

Oh dear Gattina, one way or another, these plants and seedlings are just not being given a chance are they? Well, at least they didn't fall on you!

Oh great!....:0(

Oh dear.....just seeing this, and sorry to say, but all of the imagery that you have conjured up has really given me a chuckle Gattina.....shaudenfreudan(???) No idea of the spelling, but I hope you understand.

you cut your preverbial green fingers of before you get started lol xx .

Gattina there is an old song just for you...."always look on the bright side of life"........

You're a wonder!

I Know! And I'm modest, too, despite the fact I have nothing to justify that modesty.........LOL!

How's the situation now, Gattina? did they come back?

It's difficult writing with crossed fingers, Fran, but no, not so far! I've been sprinkling the wonder chemical Methyl Salicylate around (I'm sure I've written about this elsewhere) and I'm not sure whether it's this that's done the trick, or whether Mr & Mrs Porcupine are on their holidays! As an interesting follow-up, I was in the farmers' supplies centre yesterday, talking about porcupines with several people, and one elderly, terminally weather-beaten chap came and slapped me across the shoulders "Cow muck!" he said (only he didn't say muck) "Cow Muck - rich and steaming from the cowshed and LOTS of it, Signora!"
Well, if the pong of the C6H4(OH)(COOCH3) doesn't finish us off, then surely the offerings from the cowshed will!

lol, even if none have been seen recently, good idea to keep up the deterrent in case others happen along.

can you get the manure in bulk and affordable? and get it to where it's needed? at least it's a natural smell! and it might do the ground some good as well???

Better than pigmuck,
Mucking out stables is fine, cowsheds not bad but pigs....although clean animals have awful B O thereagain maybe it would keep the critturs away.......

We can get as much cow**** as we want as often as we want - all our close neighbours have cowsheds and make Parmesan cheese. We already have the most enormous manure pile at the top of the garden, rotting down nicely to spread around next year, and every time it rains, we pray the pile won't come sliding and slipping down across all the vegetable beds. Not fresh enough now though - we've had it a couple of months now!