I bought a kiddie wading pool for Jake last summer. On very hot days I filled it with fresh water, and he would jump in for a quick soak. The racoons liked it too, they would wash disgusting things in the water, so I had to dump the water almost every day. I’m sure my neighbour downstairs didn’t appreciate it.
This year I’m relying almost entirely on neighbourhood lawn sprinklers to cool Jake off after a long walk in the park. He thinks that sprinklers are way more fun than just sitting in a pool anyway. When he spots one, he dashes up to it and bites the water, he jumps back and forth with the spray and generally gets silly and very wet. So far no one has chased us away, in fact bystanders usually stop, point, and laugh. Jake IS a character, and he loves to make people laugh.
That left me with an unused kiddie pool this year, and it’s stored propped up against a wall, going to waste. I had thought of planting something in it, but didn’t follow up on the idea. Now I find out that it wasn’t an original thought, in fact kiddie pool gardening seems to be a well-established practice.
"….One pool alone yielded an average of 22.5 pounds of tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, zucchini and a variety of greens. "
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POLLENATRIX 
Great Blog! !LOL! about your problems with the Raccoons. We live in the middle of a large wooded area. We have squirrels, raccoons, very large rabbits and even larger deer. All of them destroy plants, dig up planters, mow our vegetable garden and flower plants to the ground, etc, etc, etc. The coons wash disgusting things in our bird baths too. It is weekly battle. I have given up. They have won. Yesterday, I looked out and there was a huge rabbit, laying on his back in the cool veg. garden dirt, rolling around on his back and stretching his legs next to the romaine and iceberg lettuce plants he recently ate. They don’t even bother to run when I yell at them. Basically he luxuriating in the moist garden dirt, taunting me. Squirrels dig up our amaryllis and tubers, bite them, then drop them on the deck. They leave uprooted strawberry plants hanging in trees off our deck. What happened to that strawberry plant..”oh there it is in that tree”. Blue jays bury stuff in our containers and then the coons and squirrels dig up the plants to get to the things that the blue jay planted. I have a small alarm called ‘The Reporter’ that beeps when an animal walks in front of it. I got it from Radio Shack. It is wireless so might work to protect your deck area (if they still have them). It will allow you to attach up to four sensors with different alarms for each. I have also found that thin layer of cypress mulch makes them quit digging the bulbs in the pots. Loosing a several year old amaryllis is heart breaking, I can’t imagine loosing an orchid to the warmits.
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