I know I've lamented our squirrel problems here, and I thought y'all might want to know - I think we've got a solution for next year! First of all, the squirrels have officially eaten all but one of my peppers. I put an onion bag around the last one & so far they've left it alone. They're eating my tomatoes too... and I've got more than enough to share, but they take a bit out of one and then throw it down so I've got dozens of wasted tomatoes all over my deck. It makes me VERY mad! They haven't gotten to my pumpkins yet - I've got a couple beautiful mini pumpkins growing well right now & am praying they leave them alone. Anyway, my husband & I were discussing our wishes for the garden next year. He told me I could do whatever I wanted with the garden next year so long as the total cost (improvements, plants, soil...) stayed under $100. And most of our changes for next year will be free & I'm saving seeds and know I can count on a few freebie seedlings next year so the one real improvement we wanted to work on was a better way to keep the squirrels out of my plants. We thought of PVC & bird netting and all sorts of other inexpensive ideas, but the one I think we're going to go with is to use the deck rails as the structural "base" for a 2x2" lumber & window-screening enclosure. I can buy a roll of 36" x 100' screening for $30 so it looks like we could screen the entire deck in for about $50 - which leaves me plenty of money for everything else. We were thinking that if we painted the wooden supports to match the deck it ought to look like a screen-porch. Do y'all think this would work? And... this would't look cheap or cheesy, would it? love, mom
Mama, Squirrels can go through a window screen like it was never there, and your squirrels sound brave enough to try it. What you need is hardware cloth, or what's commonly known here as rat wire. Maybe you can decorate it a little so it looks better, one lady posted on another forum that she wove some thin ribbon in a couple of horizontal bands through her compost cylinders made of the same stuff, and said it looked nice when finished. Make sure it locks up tight, too, I'd put one of the tiny padlocks on the latch as they can figure out a simpler fastener. It's amazing how smart the little fuzzy devils can be.
They'll eat my SCREEN too?!? Grrrr!!! Okay, hardware cloth. I know I've heard of it before - guess I'll have to price it too. Do you think aluminum screening would work? I know my parents put that into their basement windows to keep the gophers & mice out. Oh, another thought we had - chickenwire! Would that work? I know a little place by my parents that might have the smaller-holed chickenwire for a decent price too. (sigh) Darn pests! love, mom
rat trap with peanut butter will solve the problem real fast this fall, they taste good and you know they are well fed!
I've resorted to the 22 a few times on squirrels and gophers in my garden. They're tasty little things.
Chickenwire? I suspect they'll bite through it. Remember that you're dealing with an animal that can live on hickory nuts. Try various tools like pruners, cutting pliers and such on a hickory nut and see what it takes to cut one, and you'll get an idea of a squirrel's potential. I suspect that aluminum wire would be too soft to stop them if they are determined, even an aluminum alloy. You may think I'm nuts about using a little padlock, but I had a year long battle with them over my bird feeder and I came up with a lot of what I thought were ingenous gadgets to stop them. It's unbelievable how mechanical they are.
How about one of those plastic owl models. I don't have a squirrel problem, so don't know if it'll work. I may try one for my wild turkey problem areas. But then I have yappy little dogs that's probably what keeps the squirrels away. They don't seem to bother the turkeys or the deer. They come right up to the sliding doors and stare at the dogs.
Hmmm... I personally like squirrels, but I don't have them ruinging my garden either. In the past we had problems though with our chickens and guineas tearing up the garden and eating all the veggies... We fenced off the garden and put our chihuahuas in there. *haha* If you have a small dog, or could adopt one, all you'd need to worry about is a fence good enough to hold it in, rather than keep a wiley squirrel out. It would have to be a tough little dog though... Squirrels can get nasty.
try this one, it really works well. THere are several gardening stores where you can get a pretty good size plastic snake. Growing up we had one that was about 10 feet long and we just put it in the garden and moved it every day. Never had a problem with any rodents at all. Somebody mentioned a owl as well.... These rodents are naturally afraid of snakes, owls, or anything else that will eat them, so maybe give it a try.
Squirrels are an ongoing problem with my in-laws as well. They mainly grow flowers from bulbs, and tomatoes, and squirrels tend to destroy or eat a lot of it! They set up a greenhouse in the back yard for the tomatoes, which has kept the squirrels away, but they've tried virtually everything.
I have two ways of dealing with animals and my garden: I put out food to feed them far from my garden. Typically they just eat what I leave them (table scraps whatever) and that's that. My second line of defense is my ferrets. I use some of their old litter and "presents" around the garden along with shaking old ferret shirts out there t get some fur too. Keeps everything at bay. You must know someone with a cat or ferret that you could get some from.
