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.

l. Critters don't seem to know what to do with black tomatoes, particularly Black Pearl, Black Krim and Black Prince. They leave them alone. Since Black tomatoes were bred in Russia for northern climates, they use sugar as an antifreeze and are sweeter, so we like them better anyway. 2. We vacation on the Outer Banks every year. We bring back several garbage bags of seaweed, which washes up on the shore back on Albemarle and Pamlico Sound. We run it through the chipper shredder and get a nicely diced mulch. We spread it around the margins of our garden. Our critters seem confused by the saltwater smell and texture and won't cross it. Snails also pull back and won't cross it. Next Winter it decomposes and enriches the soil. 3. We plant a ring of Ghost peppers around our red tomatoes. They're bright red just like our tomatoes. Every July as soon as the Ghost Peppers ripen, that year's crop of new young critters happily try some. We've found half eaten Ghost Peppers scattered around our yard and driveway. We've found squirrels, chipmunks and raccoons literally laying in our birdbaths with their mouths open to the water. A week or so later the red tomartoes come into season and none of the critters seem interested. We don't use the Ghost Peppers for anything else, as they're way too hot for us. But a dozen or so plants produce prolifically, so we pick buckets full and run them through the chipper shredder to produce a mulch and spread it around the margins of the garden. The critters really don't like it either. It keeps rabbits out of our lettuce.

We have been using baffles with excellent luck. We only see squirrels on the ground, never on the feeders. We use the tubular baffles on a shepard's hook. There are four feeders hung from one hook and multiple other shepard's hooks placed around the yard with the same baffles, and no squirrels draining the feed. Much less expensive than a single feeder. Martha

One thing I've tried but sadly, it only works for a short time is this: Spray the pole and every place the squirrels may touch with oily cooking spray. Then sprinkle it HEAVILY with red pepper. They really hate red pepper. The rain will wash it all away and red pepper is NOT cheap in the bigger containers, but it works. I mostly use it when I'm at my wit's end just to get the satisfaction of watching them try to get to the seed but can't. If someone could come up with a good reliable and affordable solution to this, they could make a lot of money! We've tried all the squirrel baffles, supposedly squirrel proof feeders, etc. but they always find a way around it.