Squirrels (?) Destroying My Garden

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Squirrels or chipmunks (or something like that) are wiping out my tomatos. Last year, I got 4 tomatos from 4 plants. All the rest were nibbled on! This year (before any tomatos have even come out yet) the pests have commenced to gnawing on the VINES!! Anyone know how to trap, poison, kill, or otherwise keep these pests out of the garden??

-- Quint Larkin (nuk5@hotmail.com), June 09, 2000

Answers

Quint,

Squirrels and/or chipmunks are almost impossible to keep out of the garden or any where else for that matter. But there is a nasty trick you can play on them. Take a burlap sack, attach to a pole as if you were going to torch something. The idea is to leave a trail of char smoke around the perimeter of your garden. So, you light the burlap and drag it around the perimeter of the area you want to protect. Do this each time after a rain, else you will be inviting them back. You might want to do this once per week.

-- JerryR(La.) (jwr98@hotmail.com), June 09, 2000.


We've been having good luck with kelp keeping the critters away from the produce. Sprinkle liberally around the plants. They seem to dislike the smell.

I don't know how the following would affect the plants but it sure helps to deter from chewing. Mix up a batch of pepper spray and spray on plants. A jar of Jalapenos peppers into a blender of water. Blend really well and strain really well. Use in a spray bottle.

-- john leake (natlivent@pcpros.net), June 09, 2000.


Shoot them, eat them, and make neato hats out of their tails. Just kidding. Are they eating your garden because they have no water source? I noticed during a drought a few years ago that my tomatos were all nibbled on the bottoms of the fruit, and bites were taken out of everything else. I have since installed a small koi pond and put out sunflower seed every few days, and even in dry spells they haven't eaten anything else in my garden. I think sometimes they eat tomatos for the water content. Chicken wire around tomato cages helps, too, according to some folks. Hope this helps!

-- Hannah Maria Holly (hannahholly@hotmail.com), June 09, 2000.

I know that blood meal works on rabbits. Might work for squirrels as well. Good Luck!

-- Doreen (livinginskin@yahoo.com), June 09, 2000.

It could also be birds. We don't have squirrels and very few chipmunks (thanks to our mighty hunter cat!) but often the birds will eat a few bites out of each tomato. I just cut the eaten part away and use them, unless they've started to rot.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), June 10, 2000.


I heard somewhere that marigolds keep away critters (but maybe that's just rabbits). So I've planted marigolds around the perimeter of the garden. I don't know yet how well they work, but at least you don't have to redo after every rain.

-- Deborah (ActuaryMom@hotmail.com), June 12, 2000.

We have many many squirrels.They eat up the bird feeders But so far have left the garden untouched.When they get too bad I trap them with a live catch trap. I used to haul them to the forests,but now I destroy them.Maybe you should feed them bird seed (sunflower seed)

-- George Wilson (cwwhtw@aol.com), June 15, 2000.

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