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June 2008 Gardening Q&A
Skunk in the garden
 by B. Rosie Lerner
Purdue Extension Consumer Horticulturist
Weighing in on a spousal debate she’d rather not touch
Q: Will skunks eat most anything a human will? I read this, but my husband doesn’t believe it. Someone claims that a skunk chewed off their mature beets, even below the ground level. Would a skunk do this? — Donna Wietlisbach, Batesville, Ind.
A: Though skunks likely prefer many other foods to beets, it is possible they would eat beets and many other garden crops. Skunks may also damage garden crops while foraging for grubs and earthworms. According to the animal damage specialists at Purdue, skunks prefer to hunt at night for grubs, insects, small rodents, dead animals, fruit, berries, unripened corn, mushrooms and other food items. Where the opportunity presents, skunks will raid chicken houses and poultry yards. In urban areas, they will feed on pet food, garbage, fruit drops from trees, and garden vegetables.
For more information, visit http://www.wildlifehotline.info/.
Q: I have some wonderful wild blackberry bushes in our yard/woods border. They have slowly died out over the years and are getting sparser. We enjoy using them in jelly and cobblers and are hoping to do something before we lose them all. About the only thing I’ve done through the years is to cut out most of the dead canes. We also have let ripe berries fall to the ground hoping they will propagate. Can you help or point me in the right direction for the information? — Susie Hougland, via e-mail
A: Blackberries are not as winter- hardy as raspberries, and wild blackberries are not likely to be terribly productive, but they do have wonderful flavor when they do produce. A few management strategies can help their productivity in years when winter injury has not spoiled the show.
Like raspberries, blackberries have biennial canes, meaning the plant produces new canes each year that live for two growing seasons, producing only foliage the first year (primocanes) and flower and fruit the second year (floricanes). Blackberry floricanes produce their flowers on short side branches (laterals). Blackberries can be encouraged to produce more laterals, and thus more flowers and fruit, the following year by pruning the tips back on the primocanes each summer — to about 4 feet in midsummer. In late winter, the laterals can be pruned back to about 18 inches. Floricanes die after fruiting and should be pruned back to the ground after harvest.
For more dependable performance, you might consider planting some of the improved thornless blackberry cultivars, such as Apache, Arapaho or Ouachita, whose flavor is quite similar to wild types, or Triple Crown that has an excellent, but different flavor.
Written By: eceditor
Date Posted: 5/29/2008
Number of Views: 233
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