Jeff Permar was at his wits' end.

It was late spring, 2019, and the keen gardener from Delaware in the US was suffering crop damage to his vegetable patch.

"I was really upset because I didn't know what was eating out of the garden," he tells ABC RN's Life Matters.

"I thought it was a deer, or it could have been a rabbit."

Jeff set up a motion-detection camera to catch the vegetable thief in the act. When he replayed the footage, he saw a groundhog "just staring at the camera".

"He was kind of saying, 'Yeah, I'm eating your vegetables, what are you going to do about it?' He was just so cool about it."

At first, Jeff's friends and neighbours thought he should exterminate the pest, or at least cage and relocate it.

But Jeff was taken by the critter. He named it Chunk.

Jeff kept filming Chunk, watching on as the hungry groundhog munched its way through the vegetable garden.

"He just was so entertaining," Jeff says.

"I found so much enjoyment out of it, I just kept going."

He started sharing the captured clips on a YouTube channel, Chunk the Groundhog, which nine months later had more than 50,000 subscribers.

There's even a dedicated playlist of groundhog ASMR.

Jeff says Chunk has changed his perspective on the animals that eat his garden, from viewing them as pests to seeing them as animals just trying to survive.

"I learned that this is his land too. I'm just putting a garden on it."

There was one problem, though: How was Jeff going to harvest any food when Chunk was taking it all for himself — and his growing family?

A losing battle

It's a challenge former Gardening Australia host Stephen Ryan is familiar with, although the wildlife attacking his produce come from above.

His garden in Macedon, Victoria is regularly raided by parrots, cockatoos and both ring- and brush-tail possums.

"[They] come in and rip the hell out of your apple trees and your pears and everything else," he says.

"You end up getting no fruit from those because they come in and they eat absolutely everything."

Stephen tried netting his fruit trees but says it became "an absolute nightmare".

"I went out into the garden and saw two parrots flying around inside the net at my nashi pear with the cat ... sitting there looking like it was watching telly," he says.

That was the day he decided to stop netting his trees.

"It's unsightly, you do trap animals with the nets, so I'd rather lose fruit."

Jeff also tried unsuccessfully to protect his crops from the ravenous Chunk.

"No matter what I did to try to protect the garden, he always figured out a way in," Jeff says.

"I'd build a higher fence, I'd put wood around the fence trying to protect my stuff and he just took over, there was nothing I could do, he was always a step ahead of me."

And it wasn't just Chunk. Within months of the YouTube channel starting, Chunk had attracted a mate, named Nibbles. The pair have since had three chucklings: Chip, Chibbles and Nugget.

Enough for everyone

Jeff decided to take a different approach this year, setting about planting two distinct gardens.

He thought if he gave Chunk and family their own garden, they may not steal from his.

"They can come and go as they please," Jeff says.

Stephen suggests gardeners take note of which plants their local wildlife are targeting.

"You find out that there are certain plants that they particularly like," he says.

He says these plants can be left as "sacrificial offerings" but recommends not planting more of them because that just adds to the food source — and the bigger the food source, the more animals you attract.

"These people who say they feed their possums and so they don't eat their gardens ... I think are in fairyland because all that happens is they invite their relatives," he says.

Feeding the soul

Jeff says his dual-garden method is working for now.

"So far so good but I'm not too confident. I think eventually they will take that (second garden) over as well."

Stephen, meanwhile, points to the indoor plant revival as an example of how growing plants can be about more than just growing food.

"People are surrounding themselves with plants, not just outside but also inside as well."

He sees planting flowers as important as planting carrots.

"Gardening is not just about feeding one's body but it is about feeding one's soul," Stephen says.

He still loses a lot of fruit but doesn't really mind.

"There is always the greengrocers.