Ladyrose, you know I like you a lot!! Your post just brought a huge smile to my face which I am in need of very badly. Now don't dare get me wrong I am not smiling cause you are having critter problems I am smiling cause of the "I am in Albert Finney, NETWORK Mode!" comment. lol

Pie tins seriously keep the critters away from my tomatoes, that is why I was thinking about using them for my containers. I think the duct tape prevented the critters from opening my container, THANKFULLY!!

I take a pole about 3 to 4 feet tall tie a string that is about 3 to 4 inches long to it and attach a pie tin to the string and let it blow in the wind. I will say I didn't use it to protect my containers, but I promise it works to keep them away from my tomatoes so I don't know why it couldn't work for the containers also.

Tin Pans! Thanks Carolyn. I viewed on Youtube, just now, that Cayenne Pepper or Blood Meal.

I planted a Peony, 4-days ago, with Blood Meal, Bone Meal, and Rock Phosphate. We had 3 vultures hanging out in a tree, for 2-days.

Nature.
Life.

Good luck. Last year I read someone's post about slugs getting inside their containers so I started wrapping duct tape all the way around my milk jugs. What a disaster that was to cut through when I needed to open them. This year one critter chewed right through the milk jug plastic to get at the seeds. Can't tell you which seeds they were because I'm afraid to look since if they were ones I really, really was looking forward to I'd get out my grandfather's shotgun.

This time of year critters coming out of hibernation are starving and desperate for food and there's not much of it around which means they're just a little more aggressive than they would be if food was plentiful. No guarantees but maybe if you put some trays of cheap bird seed out, at some distance from your containers, they'd stay away from those expensive seeds.

No squirrels here, but I've got a chipmunk who will leave me seeds, not take them. Plants sunflowers in my sown containers and containers holding young perennials. A length of chicken wire over the pots keeps him out - sparrows too.

What's strange is, none of us on this block even put out sunflower or mixed seeds for birds - we agreed long ago to just use the thistle feeders because they don't attract rodents.

i would agree with the bird seed or some corn or something inexpensive....they are just hungry but i would be way ticked off too. course my golden retriever chewed up two of my containers and my husband would not tell me for like three days lol think he was afraid!!! that meant i had to take two more containers and resow when i could have been planting something else in them....grrr. he better not do it again :)

Squirrels are pesky little things here. Duct tape seems to keep them out of my containers. Newly planted seedlings get a strategic placement of bamboo skewers or plastic forks to help prevent them from being dug up. Also have used plastic bird netting over raised beds until the seedlings get a chance to become established. Floating row covers can work for this too.

Good luck,
~StLGirl

OK, somebody is probably going to take issue with me, but scatter minced hot peppers around your containers. Buy the hottest peppers you can find and chop them up - being very careful with them, of course. The squirrels will (hopefully) avoid the peppers, and thus your containers.

Now keep in mind that I don't get squirrels up here in the aerie, but a ground gardener friend of mine tried this last year and she says it kept the critters out of her garden and she was able to enjoy the fruits of her labor.

My problem is pigeons - and starlings around nesting time. I've tried everything with them, with little to no luck. I want to try the hot pepper thing, but I'm afraid the birds might have to taste before they get the message, and I'm not sure what the pepper might do to them. I just want to deter them, not kill them. We'll see.

PV

Here's a tip for keeping squirrels away from your gardens. Set up feeding stations on your porperty. This came from Ed Lwrence, the gardener at our Governor General's residence. I have been doing it for many years and have not lost a bulb or container of seeds. I use one container at the back along the fence line, and fill it with nuts (usually old ones) every now and then. They know it's there and they leave my stuff alone. In addition, if they decide to bury it, they do it in someone else's garden - they do not store where they reap.
Northerner.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I will look into finding a strategic place for the bird feed.

Please be cautious with hot pepper. If the squirrel gets this in their eyes, it can cause severe pain and damage. Also, it will not work for birds, because although birds have excellent eyesight and hearing, they don't have a sense of smell and aren't affected when people put hot pepper in bird feed.

I am an avid bird watcher and have several feeders and agree with the posters above. You can don't even have to have a feeder per se, you can buy a bag of Black-oil Sunflower Seed, or peanuts in the shell, and scatter a scoop on the ground someplace each day. This will keep the squirrel happy and distracted away from your WS containers.

set you an email about daylily seeds :)

Terrene, I wasn't planning on putting hot pepper on the feeds. Agway, is down the street. I just put up feeders, at strategic distances from my containers and garden. Though, I grew a lot of tomatoes, last summer. They did not bother them. At least, I didn't notice.

This is good advice. I was afraid feeders would attract them but if they help I will go ahead. I have three squirrel nests in the back yard as it is this year.

Also as a word of warning, they love to dig in fresh soil after you plant out. If you are having that much trouble I'd put some cloche's (half a two liter or milk jug) over them till your plants get established.

Squirrels do not like the smell of cinnamon. Buy as much as you can as cheap as you can and sprinkle it around. Needs to be reapplied after a rain.

Hi Ladyrose, the part about hot pepper in the bird feed was in response to PVick's problem with pigeons.

My feeders are baffled from the squirrels, which works very well to keep them off the feeders, but enough seed falls on the ground, and I scatter some on the ground, so the squirrels are happy too.

Birds won't taste hot pepper. I was told to add hot pepper to bird seed to keep squirrels away. My Mom swears it works and the birds eat it just fine.

My problem is bunnies!!! DAM Bunnies. My neighbor with an outdoor cat moved away and we lost our bunny control.

They have ven chewed the bark off my trees and the bottom half of an arbovite bush (sp?)

I saw all kinds of bunny poop in one of my flower beds. They are eating the plants that are showing a little green already in the gound.

I am just going to get a small fence. I really don't want one but I have to...otherwise I will go nuts. They are immune to all the animal repellants. Plus those get expensive when it keeps snowing or raining them away.

The animals love our yards beause we actually grow flowers. Most of my neighbors just have bushes. nothing yummy for critters to eat.

Karen

Thanks for all the advice. I will come up with a combination of all the advice. I don't want to kill nothing, because I'm a big dog Lover!

Mine past away 2-years ago. I think, I'm out-of-morning! Considering an English Bulldog.

Hey thanks for a this advice I'm going to try everthing! Every year many of my plant "attempt suicide by jumping out of their pots!" Any advice on how to discourage skunks from taking up residence in my yard? Thanks leigh

I bought $45 worth of iris tubers one year and had to follow specific instructions on preparing them and planting them. I just got them all potted up just so and put them out in the shade, walked past them later that afternoon, and there was nothing left but one broken, chewed up tuber. They ran off with the other three tubers, never to be seen again. I was pretty mad and stunned actually...lol.

I have also noticed that the most damage they do in my yard, is in newly disturbed soil. Now I put turned over plastic milk crates over any newly planted containers for awhile. Plus I do have feeders.

Prairiemom, I had that problem with Chipmunks, I've was sitting outside and watching my Gladiolus go by.
One-by-one.
I tried to snatch them back. They gathered into a gang and started spouting Off! I put rotene dust around all my bulbs from now on.

PV, have you tried bird netting? Works great. Without it, the birds don't leave any tomatoes for us. With the netting, no damage at all.

The problem with putting out bird seed is it not only draw birds and squirrels... it can also bring you possums and rats and all kinds of undesirables.

Karen