Groundhogs are almost entirely herbivorous. The bulk of their diet is green vegetation — grasses, clover, alfalfa, dandelion, and plantain — supplemented with garden vegetables, fruit, bark and buds in early spring, and the occasional insect, snail, or grub. A single adult can put away more than a pound of vegetation in a day during late summer, because unlike most garden raiders a groundhog is racing a deadline: it must build a thick layer of fat by October to survive months of true hibernation without eating at all.
The groundhog (Marmota monax) — also called the woodchuck or whistle-pig — is a marmot, the largest member of the squirrel family across most of eastern and central North America. Everything about its diet makes more sense once you understand that annual rhythm: a lean, hungry emergence in late winter, a steady grazing season through spring and summer, and a frantic period of hyperphagia (deliberate overeating) in late summer and early fall. This guide walks through what groundhogs eat season by season, the garden plants they target first, what they avoid, and how their appetite compares with the other backyard herbivores you may be battling.
The Core Diet: Wild Greens and Forbs
Left to their own devices in a meadow or along a woodland edge, groundhogs graze much like small, furry livestock. Field studies and wildlife agency accounts consistently list the same staples: grasses, clover, alfalfa, dandelion greens, plantain, chickweed, and a broad range of other soft-stemmed forbs. They feed most actively in the early morning and late afternoon, rarely straying more than 50 to 150 feet from a burrow entrance so they can bolt underground at the first alarm.
Because they prefer tender, moist growth, groundhogs get most of their water from the plants themselves, along with dew and rain. They are not tied to streams or ponds the way beavers are, which is one reason they thrive in dry, sunny habitat like pastures, roadside embankments, and suburban yards.
This grazing lifestyle is classic marmot behavior. The groundhog’s western cousins — yellow-bellied and hoary marmots — do the same thing in alpine meadows, and the whole genus runs on the same equation: convert summer greens into fat fast enough to sleep through the season when greens don’t exist. The groundhog is simply the marmot that traded mountain talus for fencerows, hayfields, and the woodland edges of the East — and, increasingly, for suburbia, where lawns, clover, and gardens replicate its ideal habitat almost perfectly.
What Groundhogs Eat in the Garden
A vegetable garden is, from a groundhog’s point of view, an irrigated salad bar planted conveniently close to good burrow habitat. Gardeners report a fairly consistent hit list. Favorites include beans, peas, lettuce and other leafy greens, broccoli, cabbage, carrots (mostly the tops), celery, and squash. In the flower bed they go for hostas, sunflowers, zinnias, pansies, and phlox. Among fruits, they relish strawberries, melons, apples, and pears — windfall fruit under a tree is a reliable draw.
Two feeding signatures help separate groundhog damage from other culprits. First, groundhogs tend to mow plants down close to the ground in a tidy, localized patch near cover, whereas deer browse higher and leave ragged, torn stems — our guide to keeping deer out of the garden covers those signs in detail. Second, there is almost always a burrow nearby: a main entrance 10 to 12 inches across with a fan of excavated soil in front of it, often under a shed, deck, or brush pile.
A Seasonal Menu: From Snowmelt to Hibernation
Groundhogs are true hibernators, and their diet tracks the calendar tightly. When males emerge in late winter — often weeks before green growth appears — there is very little to eat, so early spring meals lean on bark, twigs, and buds of shrubs and young trees, along with whatever overwintered greens they can find. This is the one period when groundhogs do meaningful damage to woody plants, gnawing young fruit trees and ornamentals.
By late spring and summer the menu shifts almost entirely to soft vegetation, and by August the animal enters hyperphagia. Feeding time and food volume climb sharply as it lays down the fat that will fuel four to six months of dormancy. During hibernation a groundhog eats nothing at all; its body temperature can drop into the 40s Fahrenheit and its heart rate falls to a few beats per minute while it lives entirely off stored fat. That strategy is very different from caching food the way squirrels do — see what squirrels do in the winter for the comparison — and different again from pocket gophers, which stay active underground all winter; our related site covers how gophers survive winter.
Do Groundhogs Eat Meat?
Occasionally, yes — but only as a garnish. Groundhogs are classed as herbivores, and animal matter appears in their diet mostly as incidental protein: insects such as grasshoppers and June beetle grubs, snails, and rarely a bird egg or nestling encountered while grazing. They do not hunt, they do not scavenge carcasses in any meaningful way, and they pose no predatory threat to pets or poultry. If something is raiding a chicken coop, the groundhog burrow nearby is a red herring; look for a raccoon, skunk, or fox instead.
What Groundhogs Avoid Eating
Knowing what groundhogs dislike is half of practical damage control, because a garden edged with unappealing plants gets tested less often. Groundhogs generally pass over strongly aromatic herbs — lavender, rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, mint — along with daffodils (which are toxic), alliums such as onion, garlic, and ornamental chives, fuzzy-leaved plants like lamb’s ear, and most ferns. Tomatoes sit in the middle: many groundhogs ignore the acidic fruit and pungent foliage, but a thirsty animal in a dry August will take a single bite out of several ripe tomatoes, which is its own special kind of infuriating.
No plant list is groundhog-proof, though. Like deer, a hungry groundhog in poor habitat will eat things the lists say it should not. Treat unpalatable plantings as a perimeter strategy, not a guarantee — the logic is the same one we lay out for deer-proof garden design, and the two approaches stack neatly since groundhogs and deer favor many of the same crops.
How Groundhogs Find and Choose Food
Groundhog foraging is built around one non-negotiable rule: never be far from the hole. A feeding groundhog works a radius of roughly 50 to 150 feet around a burrow entrance, and it spends a striking share of that time not eating at all but sitting up in the alert “picket pin” posture, scanning for hawks, foxes, coyotes, and dogs. Eyes, ears, and nostrils all sit high on the head — a design that lets the animal periscope over grass while exposing almost nothing — and a shrill whistle sends every groundhog within earshot diving underground, the habit that earned the name whistle-pig.
Within that safety radius, groundhogs are quality-first grazers. They select the youngest, most digestible growth available — new clover over old, regrowth over mature stems — which is why a freshly cut hayfield or a well-watered vegetable bed is hit harder after every mowing and every irrigation. They also learn routes: repeated trips flatten narrow paths through grass between the burrow and reliable food, and finding such a groomed runway is one of the most dependable ways to locate the burrow itself. Groundhogs are also capable, if reluctant, climbers, and a determined animal will go several feet up a fruit tree or shrub for ripening fruit — a surprise to gardeners who assumed anything above knee height was safe.
Recognizing Groundhog Feeding Sign
Because so many animals raid the same beds, it pays to read the evidence before assigning blame. Groundhog feeding has a distinctive look: broad-leaved plants sheared off low and clean in a concentrated patch, often with wide, flat-bottomed toothmarks on remaining stems and on gnawed fruit — a rodent’s paired incisors leave a different signature than the ragged tear of a deer, which has no upper front teeth and must rip vegetation free. Damage clusters near cover and near the burrow rather than spreading evenly across a property, and it happens in broad daylight, typically morning and late afternoon.
The supporting evidence seals the identification: a main burrow entrance 10 to 12 inches across with a fan of raw soil, well-worn paths radiating toward feeding areas, and droppings rarely seen at all (groundhogs typically use an underground latrine chamber — itself a useful clue, since rabbits and deer leave abundant pellets at the scene). If the damage is instead scattered, nocturnal, and accompanied by tracks or scat, you are more likely dealing with deer or rabbits, and the fixes differ accordingly.
How Much Does a Groundhog Eat?
Wildlife agencies commonly estimate that an adult groundhog consumes roughly a pound to a pound and a half of vegetation per day at the height of summer — a striking figure for an animal that itself weighs only 5 to 14 pounds. Multiply that by a family of a female and three or four young feeding through July and August, and a small kitchen garden can be effectively stripped in a couple of weeks. The appetite peaks just before hibernation, which is why late-summer damage often seems to explode out of nowhere.
| Season | What groundhogs eat | Garden risk |
|---|---|---|
| Late winter (emergence) | Bark, twigs, buds, overwintered greens | Gnawing on young fruit trees and shrubs |
| Spring | Fresh grasses, clover, dandelion, early greens | Seedlings and transplants clipped to the ground |
| Summer | Forbs, garden vegetables, berries, some insects | Peak raiding of beans, greens, and squash |
| Late summer–fall (hyperphagia) | Maximum volume of everything above, plus fruit | Heaviest damage of the year as fat is stored |
| Winter (hibernation) | Nothing — lives entirely on body fat | None |
Do groundhogs eat tomatoes?
Sometimes. Tomato foliage is mildly toxic and generally left alone, but ripe fruit is another matter — groundhogs will bite into low-hanging tomatoes, often sampling several rather than finishing one. Damage is worst in dry spells, when the fruit doubles as a water source. Picking fruit promptly and fencing the bed are more reliable fixes than repellents.
Do groundhogs eat grubs or other animals?
Only incidentally. A grazing groundhog will eat grasshoppers, beetle grubs, snails, and very occasionally an egg it stumbles across, but animal matter is a tiny fraction of the diet. It is not a predator, and it will not control your grub problem or threaten your pets.
What should I feed a groundhog?
Ideally, nothing. Deliberate feeding teaches groundhogs to associate people with food, draws them into conflict with neighbors, and concentrates burrowing activity around foundations and sheds. If one has taken up residence and you enjoy watching it, let it forage naturally — and if it is causing damage, address the burrow and the garden rather than the menu.
Do groundhogs eat at night?
Rarely. Groundhogs are strongly diurnal, feeding mainly in early morning and late afternoon and retreating underground at night. If your garden is being raided after dark, the more likely culprits are deer, rabbits, or raccoons. A trail camera or a look at the feeding sign — clean 45-degree clips versus torn stems — will usually settle the question.
