Kitchen Garden Forum

This is the first time I have grown sweet corn & it is looking really impressive now. This morning one of the plants was crashed on the floor.On investigating, there were foot/paw prints on the raised bed, & the unripe sweetcorn had been eaten, the outer leaves appeared to have been riped away.
What would have done this?
It didn't seem to be a bird, with the marks left in the mud. I wouldn't have thought a cat would do that. I have seen a fox in the garden a couple of times.
Has any one experienced this?

Dear Lucysmum, i know Badgers are very partial to Sweetcorn, and the ripping open of the cob sounds very much like their work.

But so saying that, they normally don't stop at one plant, unless he got disturbed.

Badgers perhaps? we had some of our corn cobs today, always sweeter just picked, you will know they are ripe when the silky bits at the tips turn brown.

Quiet a few of my cobs have been eaten I thought it might be pigeons or magpies but one of the chaps on the site said it was rats, I haven't seen any rats for the past couple of years but there is a canal close by so it could be them.
I picked all the rest on Saturday a good crop, my first lot of seeds didn't germinate so I was a bit late sowing the 2nd lot.

Bren

Thanks everyone.
We are in E Cheshire where there are alot of badgers, but I'm not aware of any setts nearby and have never seen them in the garden or had any other damage. Every thing was OK this morning. Hopefully it was a one off.
Thanks for the tips about when they are ready, I was wandering.