@judydu2,
No wild hog damage here, I am familiar with that, a common site down at the old lake we had.
Maybe Alabama raccoons are more efficient with their digging than Louisiana raccoons. This is not my first year to deal with raccoons, they have been a pest here for years. I have caught possums before also, but they are not as destructive as armadillos and raccoons. Now it is possible that this was not the only one in my garden, it is possible that there were also armadillos mixed in with this band of desperadoes but this one has been tried and convicted and sentenced.
I will say that the photo shows a lot of damage, and in a sense that is a little deceptive. That is typical of the damage done throughout parts of my garden, but my garden soil is not typical. There is practically no dirt in that photo, my garden is made up of mostly pine straw, oak leaves and grass clippings, and other organic matter. So even a raccoon is capable of doing huge amounts of damage when digging in that, especially when young seedlings are planted and have not yet achieved large enough size to send down roots deep enough to hold them in place. After a few years that will all become soil, but by then I have mulched and added more organic material and have to raise the plants up higher. I guess after a few more years I will be a decrepit old man and will have to give up that type of gardening.
The alibi the raccoon gave of being an innocent bystander who was just passing through did not convince the jury! He did try to put the blame on those nasty Armadillos however.
