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Soil, Compost & Mulch

Racoons & sheet composting

11 years ago

I'd like to sheet compost kitchen scraps under wood chip mulch, but the racoons keep digging them up and making a mess. Ideally I'd like to sheet compost right in the garden bed, but racoons then dig around the garden bed upsetting plants.

Had some success in burying them very carefully. If buried without leaving any scent trace on the surface the racoons don't seem to find them. But this is extra work and not always successful.

Are there certain kitchen scraps racoons will not touch?
Any tricks to fool them?

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Comments (10)

allen456
11 years ago
.22 long rifle fools them every time
david52 Zone 6
11 years ago
I have the same problem - and the reason I stopped trying to do it around living plants.

I was successful with "trench" composting, with a continuous trench, digging a new hole using that dirt to cover the garbage, then fill that hole with the next batch, etc, covering that with dirt from a new hole, etc.

Then pinned down a length of chicken wire over the trench.

Plant it next year.
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glib
11 years ago
By now you have trained them, so things will be a bit more difficult for you. I have lots of raccoons, and I compost leaves and kitchen scraps in trash cans, which they do not enter. When I want to mix the compost with more leaves out in the open, I wait one week or more, so that everything in there has become inedible (rotten) by raccoon standards. Then I place it outside and mix with leaves or apply directly to beds. This method is not 100% fool proof, in June there will be fly larvae in that mess, and raccoons like those. When flies do not reproduce (from October to April), I observe no raccoon activity in the pile.
emgardener
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for the comments. Using chicken wire over a trench is a good idea. Didn't know racoons liked fly larvae.
harveyhorses
11 years ago
They like everything, except lead poisoning. We have a bin, (we call it the Dalek) and have to keep cinderblocks and bungy cords all over it to keep them out. I like the idea of chicken wire over a trench, we have lots and lots of leaves and chicken litter so that would be a fine solution.
emgardener
Original Author
11 years ago
Inspired by the chicken wire comment (thanks david52), I modified it to work in a planted garden bed, so that scraps can be added all summer right beside plants w/o raccoons bothering it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Keeping raccoons away from sheet compost
david52 Zone 6
11 years ago
I hope that sized piece of chicken wire is going to be big enough - I used half a roll.

But if you poke the legs of that plant support in deep enough, that may well do the trick.
nancyjane_gardener
11 years ago
I'm in Sonoma Co, in a country setting, have tons of racoons, possum, cats, turkeys, skunks and have NEVER had any of the above get into my compost!
Only rats/mice/voles. Had to poisin them! =(
Now I have barn cats to take care of things! Nancy
emgardener
Original Author
11 years ago
The 1'x1' chicken wire is working great.

Two nights ago I dug in some smelly fish leftovers. These usually drive raccoons wild. Even smeared some of the fish on top of the mulch, so the smell would be strong.

The raccoons didn't dig it up or even bother it.
pnbrown
11 years ago
When I try to compost in trenches it's rats and skunks that dig it all up. Rats cannot be stopped other than with poison. So I keep it in a pile and at least the rats do the aerating. Sometimes we hear dramatic battles between the rats and skunks at night.

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