Who's eating my little seedlings? (pic)
 

Someone is eating the leaves off my little pepper seedlings under lights in my cellar. 45 years of growing seedlings and I never experienced this. Any ideas?

With the presumption it is a mouse I just set some traps around the seedling trays and replanted. Could it be some other critter or insect?

Mice.

If it's your basement, I would suspect mice. I was surprised that some got into my basement this year too and chewed on my stored potatoes. I have lived here for 20 years and never had mice before this year. They are sneaky!

Yes, mice.

As a side note, I brought in a handful of safflower seeds (bird feeding) from the garage to start (Russians call it American Saffron) and the mouse found it on my bench.

I glued a couple of kernels on the trigger of two mouse traps with strawberry jam. I caught two the first night, and another one two days later.

The mice never even looked at peanut butter or cheese.

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Bingo! Caught the culprit this morning.

Thanks all!

there may be more than one.
keep a trap(s) set until you stop catching them.




keith

oh there's more
 

in my experience, if you see mice, there are always more you don't see!

[QUOTE=TomNJ;763117]Bingo! Caught the culprit this morning.

Thanks all![/QUOTE]

Yeah Tom, if you have 1 you have 100. Somehow they are getting into the basement and will continue to do so until you find and seal the entry/entries, as you know, they can squeeze through almost anything. Keep multiple traps set. There are some great YT videos using a 5 gallon bucket of water that are easy to make and work constantly unlike a trap that needs to be emptied and reset each time.

I left the traps in place just in case the culprit I caught has some freeloading relatives.

My seedlings are outside on my patio during the day. I have noticed of all the types of plants I grow, the pepper seedlings are the ones that seem to get eaten. Mine look like a bird has eaten a leaf or two but I haven't seen one do it yet so I'm not sure. I wouldn't have guessed the peppers would be particularly yummy to a critter.:)