I’ve been cleaning up Studio Gardens this past week. Somewhat because I’m sick of it being a mess but mostly because I’ve got my first annual (hopefully annual) Open Studio & Garden Tour next Saturday, June 21st. If you’re local, make sure you’re on my email list and you’ll get directions and all the details. You can sign up here.

The above photo and just below is “Before” cleaning up. A total mess.

Below is during the clean up. It seemed like days.

Now here’s where I have as of today. It’s rained like crazy Friday and Saturday, so I haven’t quite finished it yet. Although, this is a much needed improvement. The wet soil on the ground is from where the raccoons dug into and tore open bags of soil I had there last year.

It’s been slowly getting worse each year. I’m really bad at keeping every single pot that I buy my flowers in. Plus, all the stuff that seems to accumulate. Not to mention the raccoons.

Ugh, the raccoons.

If you’ve followed me in the last few years you’d know that I have a raccoon problem. They’re demons. Demon raccoons. They’ve managed to make my gardening life a living hell.

And I’ve tried everything to get them gone. Nothing has worked. I’ve tried chicken wire, cayenne pepper, moth balls (yuck, I don’t recommend), animal repellent and even ammonia sprayed every night. The ammonia worked well for a few weeks until it didn’t.

Anyway, they have trashed the place. Tipping pots of soil, pulling out plants only to leave them to die if not caught in time. They’ve knocked off glass containers, pulled down whole free-standing shelves, busted up my favorite angel statue and have broken just about everything I have in some way.

They even go after the bird seed and suet. Nothing is sacred to them, they take all and then thank me by shitting on my deck or on my greenhouse. In addition to all of that, they’re greedy little bastards, too.

I was so mad most mornings I’d get up to see the damage they’d done that I was in tears. Every morning I would be cleaning up the mess and re-planting what they had yanked out of the pot. I’m mad just talking about it!

This past winter, I ran across an article that said they probably are drawn to the smell of the organic potting soil which has fish in it. We most likely can’t smell it, but they can. They dig out the soil looking for fish. They of course don’t find it but they do find bugs, worms and maybe grubs so they’re rewarded and so do it over and over because they’ve gotten food there before. $%#@!

So this year, I tried a non-organic soil and that seems to have helped considerably. It’s Miracle Grow potting soil. So far so good. A few things have been dug into, but not anything like in previous years.

I believe they were first stopping at our house because I used to leave the cat food outside. They would raid the food, wash their hands in the water bowl and then trash anything they wanted. I started to take up the food bowl each night. They got so brave that I would see them eating the food (even before dark) through the kitchen door window and they would see me coming and they would just eat faster!!!

It was a race to see who was faster. Me to open the door fast enough and grab the broom to hit them with or them to cram more in their mouth and run up the deck pole just before I swung. It’s a shit show I tell ya.

They still continue to try and raid the bird feeder the little bastards. However, we bought a baffle and that seems to have stumped them for a while. Hah ha!! (Evil laugh)