How can I stop possums from raiding the parsley?

Q: Possums are eating all the parsley in our backyard. My husband is chief parsley-chopper and now doesn’t have enough. How can we stop our night thieves?
J.S., Beecroft, NSW

Credit: Simon Letch

A: Possums are cute, sweet, adorable little marsupials and, as much as you may feel tempted, you’re not allowed to chop off their cute, sweet, adorable little garden-munching heads with a parsley-chopping cleaver. You have to find gentler, less cleaver-choppy ways of stopping them from using your backyard as a midnight, all-you-can-eat buffet with parsley as entree, mains and dessert (and, if they’re into retro-styled, ’70s-era plating, garnish).

You could try spraying your parsley with a pungent mixture of fish sauce and tabasco – yeah but nah, that won’t work: modern Aussie possums have a very sophisticated palate and would be totally into a Vietnamese-TexMex fusion herb banquet.

You could try hanging shiny old CDs beside the parsley to scare the possums away – yeah but nah, I’ve tried that: the possums had no fear of my daughter’s So Fresh collections from 2002 to 2007.

You could try buying a plastic owl from the hardware store – yeah but nah: possums are savvy, they won’t be fooled by an owl that tips over in a light breeze and has a Bunnings price-sticker stuck to one wing.

You could try netting, cages, spikes, mothballs, strobe lights, ultrasonics, Israeli Iron Dome defence systems – yeah but nah: you can never stop possums once they’ve found food in your backyard.

So either move your parsley indoors, or let the possums have the plant, your backyard and also your home (if you’re renting, arrange a sublet. If you own your property, get a conveyancer to organise a title transfer). Or just stop eating parsley. I mean, come on: it tastes like parsley.

[e-mail]

To read more from Good Weekend magazine, visit our page at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and Brisbane Times.