Welcome to Gaia! ::

Finally got a place (among other things) so that's why you haven't heard from me lately. The last two days I got busy cleaning out the back and today I made frog shelters.

The river in the back was filthy with garbage and very overgrown. After cleaning all that out, the banks were quite bare, so from a left over log, I constructed three frog shelters. I backed the logs into the bank. Twigs were used as roof struts which I then covered with mud. Hopefully they'll go over with the locals.

I'm going to plant some local greenery in there too. Hopefully everything will grow in nicely.

Does anyone else have frogs? Do you have any advice? I'm totally new at all of this, so it's quite the learning experience.

this post just appeared on my rss feeds. what fortune!

http://www.gardeningtipsnideas.com/2009/04/making_your_garden_a_frog_habitat.html

You can hear the frogs here "singing" even with the windows closed! It's the best song to go to sleep by-----

There's nothing to do to encourage frogs. As long as they have food, water, and shelter, they'll multiply like mad, which is good, since so many things like to eat them. Are there any fish there? Did you see any turtles? What kinds of birds are there? Turtles, snakes, and birds like herons can wipe out the frogs pretty quickly, so I hope that whatever you plant in there grows quickly and provides good cover.

And I really hope that you can hear them "singing" from the house!

I can hear them. I'm going to see if I can take my laptop out and record them for the fun of it.

And my frog shelters have washed away. It's been raining here and the river has gone up about four to five feet and is really chugging it. eek

Leave a light on so that bugs will come. They'll be happy.

@ pirhan - Congrats on the new place and thanks for starting this thread. Just the info Ive been needing.

@ Onicoe - Hi buddy!! Thanks for the link to the article. Very helpful since I have lots of frog doings in my garden this year.

This part of the article doesn't quite reflect my experience with froggies:

A pond that encourages garden frogs is one that is not too deep, offers some plant life for protection and food, rocks for sunning on and still places to breed. These ponds can accommodate some fish but choose varieties that aren't likely to find frog larvae or tadpoles a desirable food source.

I have a 36 gallon storage container in the mostly shaded area out by the shed. It's full of much too deep rain water. And pollen. And pine needles. There is no plant life for protection. Though after reading the article I'm thinking I should see about adding some.

Tadpoles just appeared in there there one day. As far as I can tell, there are at least five generations of frogs in my yard (correct me if this seems wrong -- I know so little). There are:

silver dollar sized froggies
smaller frogs the size of grasshoppers
tadpoles the size of my thumb nail
tadpoles the size of a pencil lead
egg clusters in gelatinous masses

And y'know what... there seem to be fewer insects in my garden this year. Hmmm. Up with frog power!!

I'd love to add some fish. I can't think of any fish that won't eat tadpoles. Anyone know of anything suitable?

Wow! tadpoles and frogs oh my! I remember the last time I saw a frog was back in the second grade when we had do that metamorphosis study project with butterflies, beetles and frogs.