If we believe that bulbs do not need fertilizing when first planted, then putting blood meal where the bulb, when it forms its roots, will take up its heavy nitrogen content, and may force it to grow in earnest too early, bringing foliage up while the ground is still in a frost state, I'd say using blood meal is not the thing to do. Whether putting bone meal or another phosphurus adding material to the ground can help....experts say YES...helping the bulb to feed its roots is a way to improve the foliage and flower production. But it is mixed with the soil when first planted...not sprinkled on top. If a squirrel has the intention to dig, nothing short of removing its claws, will prevent it. The chicken wire, if its small enough, but large enough to allow the foliage to come through it, can work if the squirrel has a time to get by it. Sensing the soil there is soft from digging, the wire will move easily with the animals digging and probably only put up a barrier for a short time. Put a preying bird ontop of the ground, he might take a look and run for cover....or he may laugh at the silliness of the planter to think he can be fooled so easy and take a bite out of it as well. A snake of the same intent will probably leave the animal guffawing and rolling on the ground in hysterics. But, what the hey, it can be tried. They sell plastic owls in stores....but move it around, the squirrel might be fooled once.....shame on him..... but fooled twice...shame on you for not thinking of it sooner.

I would suspect that indeed some critter, came around and walked on your garlic trying to figure out where the good smell was coming from. I wouldn't worry about the bent over tops, those plants will go ahead and crop for you. I think they would like you to put a few sticks around them to hold their tops up, they'd feel better and maybe do some repair work. I got a little too enthusiastic hoeing out some weeds a few weeks ago and chopped the tops right off two nice plants, can't fix THAT problem, but now they have put out some new leaves and don't look all that bad. They won't be as big at harvest time, that's all. Yours may not be hurt much at all. I recently came across some notes from a garden lecture that said the alliums like lots of minerals, so I went out and sprinkled some Planters II. I usually give my garlic and also my brassicas some sulfur, since it tends to be a bit short here, and I like these foods to have a good bite to them. And one thing you may not be able to do, but it's saved us from low nitrogen situations, is use diluted urine. I can guarantee it won't bring cats around! Our garden is way out in the sticks, we have no plumbing out there, so we have a pee bucket. In winter it goes on compost heaps, but in summer it goes on anything I think needs a boost of nitrogen. I did it in town too, but discretely, after we had two dump trucks of leaves plowed into our garden and wound up with a terrible N deficiency. Everything I planted just turned yellow and sat there till they got some nitrogen. They'd turn green for two weeks and grow, then I'd have to dose them again. We got through that summer without having to use any chemical fertilizer (some 6-6-6 would have fixed the problem immediately) and the next year we had the most beautiful black dirt and the nitrogen was available again.

Years ago at our cabin on a Minnesota lake I added blood meal to the holes when planting a bunch of perennials. Raccoons dug up every one of them looking for something to eat.

LOL! I have two cats and four dogs. Problem is, my yard is big and open and the dogs have the back of the yard fenced off and can't get to the rabbits in the front. The cats are indoor cats. I don't live in the kind of place I can let my pets roam. Thanks for the suggestion though. The neighbour had a nice little cat that used to come around but he got run over a couple of weeks ago :0( Well I guess I will see if the bloodmeal works, and if not I will get rid of the rabbit before it turns into 48 rabbits.