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.

Hmmm, I still have some green berries left, will have to look for rubber snakes. I do have a garter snake who lives in the garden but doesn't seem to bother the squirrels. Electric netting looks interesting - 28" tall and open at the top good enough? I'm assuming squirrels can't jump that high. I'm also going to build a chicken run (in my spare time LOL) and have the 4ft tall 23 mesh and some poultry wire (my uncle said put UNDER the run as well as over top to keep predators from digging). Electric might work there too? Except I would think you'd still need top (for hawks) and bottom (for foxes digging)... No one thinks I need to move the bed and try to bury the wire to keep the rodents out?

Last year I picked Nakita's Gift and let some ripen and dried some. Most of the fruit that I allowed to ripen turned a black color on one side, the skin gets rough, and the pulp inside next to the black area was not good. The rest of the fruit tasted good. Must be some kind of disease. The dried fruit were excellent, seems like the astringency goes away after only a 3-4 hours of drying, even though they are not completely dried. They ended up tasting like candy, much better than the Saijo that I dried, but to be fair, the entire crop of Saijo did not seem to taste as well as what I remember a Saijo should taste like. that was my first attempt at drying persimmon, and I don't think that I dried them as much as they were supposed to be, about 12 hours, but I kept them in the freezer and they were very good eating through the winter.

I have dealt with the squirrel problem for 13 years +. I love and enjoy them and it is not true that they carry illnesses. Even rabies is quite rare . I also have two pet rats which are extremely clean and smart like my dogs I have rescued little squirrels, I love them as a species but they are not having anymore of my hard work, And it is hard working clay soil, never mind having to watch it all day. After 13 years I still cant fill even one basket of tomatoes or cucumbers. They ate the young watermelons broke the tomato plants, uprooted just about everything else. I have been wanting to help my neighbors with fresh veggies but I am not left with even enough for me . In spite of my love of this animal I must do something or this will be my last year because it is physically and mentally killing me. Shooting them is illegal ,trapping is useless and expensive.... so I am bringing out my slingshot been a while ! (hot pepper sauce is temporarily uncomfortable but does no permanent damage)so if someone gets that to work it would be better then having to resort to this option. (I tried it many times)I also heard from someone who tried it predator urine it only works if the animal knows its a big predator. Mine are city dwellers who are not afraid of a rottweiler or my four dogs. As soon as they go in they are there. Haunting :o) or soon they will be. Sorry skippy these veggies and flowers are all for me now you little thugs are too greedy and destructive. Move on or be mowed under. I still feel bad but this is insane like a gang here only to destroy. Last year they bit almost every tomato in the garden. The ones not bit were on the ground. Its not a hobby garden but serious hard work.... My husband will be pleased he was all for killing them the first day. I tried every legal means,tried to live with them nothing worked. No other choice left sadly. And for the record I know its probably been said before but If you want to feed squirrels wait till fall and use native foods they actually need like acorns,chestnuts,,, NOT PEANUTS EVER if you love them and your neighbors just don't PLEASE, because you are contributing to the problem. It has no nutritional value. The squirrels will have mangy coats, they wont forage for the proper food, which could mean starvation but most likely you will just have ugly bald squirrels digging up your garden to bury or find those peanuts . Hey I hit my practice target the second shot, but can I actually do it? I can only hope because I need my garden and my sanity intact.