WOW! First year, you learned a primary lesson that some never understand in a lifetime of killing plants, while involuntarily feeding the pests & vermin.
Speaking of pests and vermin, I shotgunned a squirrel off the roof today. It was trying to get at the drying sunflower heads under the porch roof, and ran up the wall when I stepped out the door. It made the mistake of sitting upright on the peak to chitter at me. Low power shells with small shot, and aiming a little high = no roof damage.
These buggers have chewed their way into the attic several times over the years, and are nearly inedible .
The red squirrel is a small arboreal squirrel, smaller than the gray squirrel or the fox squirrel, and weighing an average of only 11 ounces... they also taste terrible; nothing like a grey squirrel.
The article fails to mention they love the taste of electrical cable insulation; and that they love to chew holes in walls to enter barns and houses, then make nests by tearing up attic insulation.
“Gardening is a mental and physical understanding of one’s surroundings and how they work.”
I’m kind of an analytical thinker - how does it work? If I know “how” something works, I can make it work better for me and not screw up as much.