I feel your pain. I came out today to find they had bitten off ALL my tulips, dug up and completely turned over my pot of green onions just sprouting, dug up and chopped off the heads of some potatoes. They have not been so bad in recent years because I put out feeding stations near the fences and that keeps them out of the gardens, but not this year. They have chewed on daylily and iris shoots as well. I have few covers I fashioned: just a rectangular wooden base with chicken wire attached all around. In some cases I closed the top but that's the only thing that works. I also place cut-off 2 litre and 8 litre containers and cover emerging plants. I put one of the covers over my angelique tulip bulbs which are just beginning to bloom. I wish I had a shotgun. One other thing I am planning to try is mouse traps. They will spring them and be frightened off, but will not be hurt. And to think we cut down our big trees to get rid of them and they still come!! Arrgghh!!

Last year a striped gopher got strangled in my netting and it seems like the gophers have decided it is too dangerous to try to eat berries. I don't have the sides down well at all. The deer come and get whatever is sticking out.

I did not have any luck last year waiting till 'first blush' to pick my tomatoes as the squirrels didn't care what color they were; they'd grab them, eat half of them and toss them in my yard. Before my first year of gardening (last year), I actually liked squirrels. I'd think to myself "They can have some and I can have some and we'll all be happy". But no. They had some and I had one. They dug up all my chamomile, basil, thyme and oregano and left them in the sun to die. I don't like them anymore and think of them as a rodent infestation that the city refuses to deal with. Maybe it's different for those of us that live near parks full of them, but this year I am fencing around my garden with strips of bird netting twisted like barbed wire 3 feet up all the way across. If that doesn't work I'll be going with a capsicum based spray around everything. And if that doesn't work I'll be posting warning signs in my yard and setting up an electric fence. Very frustrating. :(

In my experience, squirrels can defeat most feeders. The tube feeders you mention work sometimes until the squirrel finds a place where his teeth can reach some small portion of the plastic. Even the metal pole mounted box feeders guaranteed squirrel proof are not. I've seen my squirrels sit on the top and hang over the edge to pick seeds from the tray without tripping the weighted perch. The baffles that mount above the hanging feeders are only temporarily effective. Post mounted feeders set away (11-feet) from anything are the most effective. The post baffle needs to be 5.5-feet high and the feeder cannot hang lower than 5.5-feet. My dad uses safflower seed and hangs his feeders high on a post with a big baffle. This works most of the time for him. He gets doves and cardinals mostly with the safflower. The big birds can sit on his seed savers. I use a metal post with a baffle and (fingers crossed) so far it works fine. I even have a platform feeder hanging on mine. BUT, I have a crazy border collie running amuck thru the yard keeping the squirrels treed. Good luck, those little devils really take a lot of fun out of bird feeding.