Squirrels
As long as we are on animal problems, any ideas how to eliminate squirrels? They are digging up everything, eating my plants and burying peanuts everywhere.
As long as we are on animal problems, any ideas how to eliminate squirrels? They are digging up everything, eating my plants and burying peanuts everywhere.
they can’t be destroyed. they’re like Doritos – they just make more
wow, i agree they can be pests in the garden… but destroyed? that’s terrible!
you can’t kill squirrels in the state of new york. the good thing is, if you can find an exterminator who won’t tell, they will kill them. they are pests that need to be destroyed.
in england the government plans to get rid of the squirrels, they should do the same here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4635330.stm
grey squirrels are a huge plague, but unfortunately many think, they are cute. they are rats with bushy tails at best. soap shavings are supposed to deter them.
Ah, but these are “city squirrels” who can’t be fooled that easily! Their sense of smell is very keen, so the mere whiff of freshly disturbed earth will send them into a digging frenzy, even if the soil is tamped down. You can try covering the soil with a piece of chicken wire and secure it with paper clips or bobby pins (if anybody sells those anymore).
The squirrels can be fooled. When the see that you’ve been digging around, the think maybe there’s something good down there. The remedy is to really pack the soil down around the newly planted. Don’t worry about the roots. It will temper their curiousity and the squirrel activity should go down 80-90 percent.
Blood meal is actually bone meal which is used as a fertilizer, and you can buy it anywhere that sells garden supplies and fertilizers. It provides nitrogen for plants but smells like blood to squirrels. Squirrels think that a predator has killed one of their own and consequently avoid the area. However, you have to re-apply it after every rain event, and you have to be careful not to place it around flowering plants. Nitrogen encourages foliage production, not blossoms.
Squirrels are the bane of my existence as a gardener. I believe I have so many due to my neighbor’s empty house next door-they are living in the house and haved raised generations for the last 3 years. They are so bad that the phone company has had to repair my line 5x in 2.5 years. My daffodils and crocuses have really suffered. And they are not supposed to like daffodils at all, but it seems that they have to try them first and leave the chewed blossoms for me to see. Urgh! So, I have been spraying plants with Deer Off and they don’t like that. It’s basically Hot pepper spray with a element to makes it stick to plants. I have also made a red pepper based spray at home- it has ammonia, cayenne, murphy’s oil soap and garlic in it. That seems to work too, but both need to be reapplied after rain. Same deal-they have to bite ’em first to figure out it tastes nasty.
Believe it or not, the Botanical Garden website mentions feeding them to keep them from eating the bulbs. here’s the article:
http://www.bbg.org/gar2/topics/sustainable/2000wi_squirrel.html
So, i’ve given up. I have started throwing a handful of “Critter Mix” bought from Lowes that contains corn, sunflower seeds and peanuts over the empty house fence. Since spraying and feeding, only one lopped off daffodil.
Good Luck! You’ll need it.