I live in an area where buying a pellet gun or setting traps I'd be up my ears in dead squirrels within a week with more left to kill. Oddly, i live IN the city and not a rural area. The thing is I live in a place bordering one of the largest green areas for a few miles. The squirrel population is extraordinary. At almost any point during the day you see huge families cutting back/forth. Very few seem to actually live near my garden, but this squirrel community is so expansive they seem to be able to scour huge amounts of territory without fighting for the territory. I don't know if squirrels tribe up or anything, but around here I'd have to control my garden instead of the squirrels. The squirrels are firmly in charge here. hehe... I haven't had an issue with them being huge pests in 3 years here...until this year. This year they have developed a really huge appetite for tomatoes. Rather than losing a handful every flush I'm getting plants stripped bare as far as they can reach. Oh well...

This is a great thread and I hope a lot of the "oldies" post here - me being one but learning still after a few years... HOS works well for me because it is too tedious to plant out individual seedlings... but then there are some that I feel more apt to single out. I'll explain my thinking: With certain seeds, i.e. rose campion, salvia, BES, alyssum, coreopsis, (and probably many more just can't think right now...), I have had great success with planting out hunks of the seedlings.... I sow them very close together and just chunk them out - I love the huge mounds I get with the HOS - and I end up with more than enough flowers for each mound. The theory of bumping out the weakest seedlings may be happening, but the end result is a nice sized mound with multiple flowers. Following me, here? BUT.... when I have seeds like scabiosa, gaillardia for example that for some reason I have trouble getting good germination (don't know why...), I sow them a little further apart and prick the seedlings out with a shrimp fork and use the spoon method to plant them out. Same with my valuable (and expensive) Profusion zinnias. Now - I've gone to the Dollar store and bought cheap plastic containers (in purple actually) with lots of holes on the sides - they are little baskets - and have covered the seedlings when our temps were extremely hot and I was worried about mid-day hot sun. It works wonderful and while it may look weird for a while (although from a distance no one EVER knows what those purple things are...) it definitely helps during the hot sun days. Hope this helped. Carrie

Lol, Mike. I actually like squirrels with or without the gravy, lol. I love to watch them but I just don't want him digging in my plants and stealing my bulbs. I curse my dog for doing that as well but I love her too. I saw him on the next door neighbors roof as I drove off today and went around the block and came back and sure enough he was in my yard, lol. I went by the house they tore down and guess what I found. 2 of the white lillies were popping up thru the bare dirt right next to a bull dozer, lol. I was so happy. Even though I felt like crap I went to my friends house nearby and got her shovel and when I got back the workers were back from lunch. I said excuse me I have to just grab these flower bulbs real quick and I'll be out of your hair. They just stopped and watched and said have a good day. These are staying in a pot in the garage til I can get a feeder for Red. (Thats his new name) he is the only one I have seen in the neighborhood and thank goodness no armadillos. Those things are nasty. I stopped by the organic nursery after that and she told me to put some orange oil around the beds and it might deter the critters. That crap was $17 a bottle, I hope it works. I got that and some fish emulsion and 2 bags of ladybug potting soil that doesn't have peat in it. She said that is what is attracting the fungus gnats. It was $48.99 after she have me a 20% discount for whining, lol. I got home and went out the back door and my Naughty Nick was missing from its pot! This was devil dogs doing I am sure. I wanted to strangle her. It looks like she unpotted it and carried it up the hill and left it there. Its not chewed on so I potted it back up and will hope for the best. I should have stayed home. I feel like crap again now. Going to drink a bottle of Nyquil and go to bed, lol.

haaahaha...i now don't feel so bad knowing that a family of squirrels has taken up residence in my garage. good thing my garage is not attached to the house. but they have torn a huge hole in the back of my garage, and it seems that they are not even scared of me anymore. when i go in the garage, the mother squirrel does not even move from her spot up in the rafters. i swear today that one of them was waiting for me on my back porch....wtf?? thankfully my husband has just bought a giant assault rifle type pellet gun and is excited to use it. the squirrels have done so much damage to our garage, i almost feel like we might as well tear it down and build a new one. they have ripped down ALL the insulation, and the holes are ridiculous. so...good luck to all you squirrel hunters out there...and just remember...they might be cute..BUT THEY ARE STILL RATS!!!!