How to keep squirrels and rats from eating our vegetable garden?
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Suggested Project Book
https://www.bbg.org/gardening/article/managing_rats_in_city_gardens
https://bonnieplants.com/library/keeping-squirrels-out-of-the-garden/
HI Laurie. I use red pepper flakes, fake snakes, and a garden owl. I sprinkle the flakes on the soil. Every few days I move the garden owl around. This is the best thing I can get to work.
I'd add, plant peppermint to Amanda's comment. Rodents of all kinds despise peppermint. However...the cats adore it, so if you hate them too...this is not your solution.
I use a lot of rubber snakes. I have about 10 of them. I put some on the ground and wrap some around my tomato cages. I have 2 groundhogs in my yard. I always throw them the old vegetables that have gotten too big. This keeps them out of my garden.
I use bird netting to completely encase my garden, but I've constructed a frame of sorts on which to hang it. Here's the frame (w/o the netting though)
I also use yarn to string around the main branches of the plants and up onto the top of the frame, adding more strings as the tomatoes grow. They got higher than my garage and I had to stretch to get the last of the crop, but I lost no tomatoes to having them sag onto the dirt or falling off, even the big beefsteaks. They are easier to pick as well.
Grow some mint
I agree with the rubber snakes, you can also put Cayanne pepper down around the base of the plants and or use cinnamon powder and shake it on the leaves.