Using squirrels as gardeners!
edlincoln
8 years ago
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Huggorm
8 years agoedlincoln
8 years agoRelated Discussions
Do squirrels eat stuff in gardens?
Comments (45)This city is infested by grey squirrels. They use the city's electricity cables as a highway. Houses are densely built and there are some tall trees. Needless to say, we can't use any physical barriers as they can easily hop onto a tree, a fence or cables and just jump off to wherever they please. In my case, the worst is my front yard flower bed (I also have two five-storey high maple trees, so they feel right at home). I don't know why, but every time they make holes in the ground, they do it around the root balls. I wonder if it is because they want to munch on the roots (so far, they don't seem to actually have damaged the roots). They keep poking holes around my lavenders, and it really messes with my head, beause every time I feel happy that the lavenders are finally firmly rooted, they pull the earth up around them, and I have to keep patching it all up. They also bury and dig in the lawn, and I am quite puzzled at this, as the soil under my grass is rock hard (there is much softer soil nearby that they won't even touch). They never touched the crocus I planted in the same lawn, just under the trunk of the maple tree they live in. Go figure. The squirrels have stolen my watermelons (and left the carcasses all shredded up all over my plot). What really bugs me about this is that they don't actually eat the melons. They just tear them up into little chunks and then they leave. I find neat little piles of shredded melon. They have also eaten cukes, but not off the vine, though. They eat the cukes I leave out to dry them for seed. They seem to leave tomatoes alone. At first, I used the Havahart traps and I relocated them to a nearby park. I soon got fed up with that as they start really becoming numerous and quite motivated starting in midsummer. I just can't keep up with them and the trips to the park take up a lot of my time. There are also some super squirrels each year that seem to be smarter than the lot of them and that seem to want to simply destroy my garden just for the heck of it instead of just feeding, breeding and burying. So, I have started drowning them. Yes, I know, it is quite drastic, but that is the only efficient method I found, and honestly, in my neighbourhood, the squirrel population really needs to be controlled, and people add to that by feeding them for fun. Yes, I know, they just act according to their instincts and they have no bad intentions. But I am not going to live on a barren plot just so they can have their way. Besides, did I mention the entire city is infested by them? My family used to judge me for drowning cute little squirrels, but once they started seeing the damage, their disapproval melted away and all that was left was admiration for being tough enough to hold them under the water until they die (which, by the way, is quite quick and the squirrels don't even have time to panic as they die within a few seconds). For the flower bed, I am considering laying chicken wire disks around plants and covering that with the usual pine needle mulch I use. I will simply cut a foot square piece of chicken wire, cut into it up to the center and make a hole about twice the size of the plant's stem or trunk in the middle. Nobody would see them, but the squirrels would be stopped dead in their tracks. As for melons, next year, I will simply put the little melons in plastic cherry tomato boxes: they have little holes and let the sunshine in, and they are big enough that the melons can become large enough for the squirrel to find them too large to mess with before I need to remove the boxes. We'll see. I read that chicken manure supposedly keeps the squirrels away. I will start testing that as I have some pelleted chicken manure fertilizer left. I also read somewhere that daffodils are toxic to them, and sure enough, they don't ever go near my daffodils, so interplanting tulips and crocus with daffodils may be a good idea. I would gladly use a rifle, but living in Canada, that is not a possibility. So, I will mainly just keep drowning them until the city implements their squirrel control policy, which better be soon....See MoreSquirrels...Squirrels...SQUIRRELS!!!
Comments (5)I have squirrel problems too. One thing that has been pretty good for me are white fabric hairnets, also called bouffant caps - the kind they use in clean rooms. I'll use a larger round pot and plant several seeds about 1" apart or whatever in it. I also top off with chicken grit if I think the seedling can compete with it. Then I stick a chop stick in the middle, put the hairnet over it (they are reusable BTW and last from year to year). Then I put a rubber band around that. It doesn't heat up like plastic, it lets the rain in and keeps the seedlings from drying out, keeps them from being crushed by water, keeps them from scorching in full sun. You can also water through them. Open it up once and a while for circulation if it's particularly damp out for a few weeks. The hairnets will stay on without the rubberbands but animals might take them to make their nests. Here is a link for this type of cap, though I am not sure what brand I have. Here is a link that might be useful: Bouffant Caps...See MoreKeeping squirrels out of garden AND trellising tomatoes
Comments (6)The pesky squirrels like to mess around in my garden too. They 'plant' black walnuts that sprout and grow roots a foot deep before they show any foliage above ground. I have to dig holes down to china to get them out. One thing I found helpful is either landscape fabric or a very thick layer of newspaper covering every possible inch of soil, and then some mulch on top of it to make it look nicer. If the squirrels dig down through the mulch and hit the fabric/newspaper layer, they give up and plant their darn walnuts elsewhere. Of course, if your squirrels are doing other things in addition to digging, the fabric/newspaper wont help much....See MoreHelp! Squirrels Chomping Up My Garden!
Comments (10)Great idea with the mothballs! They will need to be replenished occasionally. I have had luck with putting dog fur in the toes of nylon stockings and attaching the "fur balls" to plants. Since you have dogs, getting the fur might not be a problem. This also needs to be renewed, especially after a heavy rain. The digging problem can be solved with chicken wire placed about 2" under the surface. Make X cuts when you plant, and replace the wire. The stems and fronds will come up through the wire, and the squirrels will be deterred from digging. According to the Birder's Handbook, passerines (which are the majority of birds you see at feeders) and woodpeckers do not have a highly developed sense of smell so the scent of mothballs probably would not deter them from visiting feeders and watering stations. Vultures, on the other hand, probably do have a highly developed sense of smell, and also very strong stomachs!...See Morekrnuttle
8 years agoterrene
8 years agomad_gallica (z5 Eastern NY)
8 years agoedlincoln
8 years agolast modified: 8 years agoterrene
8 years agowisconsitom
8 years agoedlincoln
8 years agowisconsitom
8 years agodavidrt28 (zone 7)
8 years agoken_adrian Adrian MI cold Z5
8 years agoedlincoln
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agowhaas_5a
7 years agoedlincoln
7 years agolast modified: 7 years agowhaas_5a
7 years agoedlincoln
7 years agoLogan L Johnson
7 years agoedlincoln
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7 years agolast modified: 7 years agojocelynpei
7 years agolast modified: 7 years ago
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