Protect Your Garden!
Truth time: have you ever been so excited to harvest your own cabbages? What about tomatoes, herbs? and eggplants? Because there’s nothing worse than waking up and finding out that all your hard work has been chopped off by a mysterious creature.
It’s quite devastating, true. If you’re an outdoor gardener, not only do you know your way around pesky insects, but you also need to pay attention to other hungry animals (besides you, hehe). Naturally, bunnies and deers are cute and no one can be upset when stumbling upon one (I would personally add raccoons as well, but that’s just me).
However, they won’t be so adorable when you catch them munching away at the crops that you worked so hard for. Luckily for you, we’re here to help you find some of the most common critters that have it out for your Garden of Eden, and offer a series of humane solutions on how to stop them from stealing your forbidden fruits and vegetables.
Gophers
Gophers are small rodents that live in tunnels under lawns and gardens. They have an astounding sense of smell and hearing. Due to the fact that they live underground, gophers generally target plants and tree roots.
But they do more than that: they can destroy years of growth in only a couple of hours. Even if they’re quite a rare sight, especially in broad daylight, you might know that you deal with a gopher infestation if you notice plenty of dirt mounds around your garden and even trip on them.
Gopher tunnels underneath the lawn can also weaken the ground above, causing your nation to collapse. That’s why, in my opinion, they become an even more pressing issue.
Raccoons
These cheeky, wonderful bandits are well-known for raiding trashcans and wreaking havoc in yards. Raccoons are nocturnal and omnivorous creatures that will eat anything, such as eggs, bugs, frogs, fruits, and specifically vegetables.
They love munching on sweet corn, but also on peas, potatoes, apples, melons and strawberries. Since they are nocturnal creatures, they only come out to feat during nighttime, which means it might be quite hard to catch them in the act.
Luckily, there are some telltale signs that you have raccoons stealing your crop: holes in your lawn, a mulch pile, empty bird feeders, spilled trash bins, and if you have corn-toppled stalks on the ground.
Bears
If you live in rural areas, it shouldn’t be that uncommon to encounter bears picking away your berries in your yard or ruining beehives to get that sweet and tasty honey. Bears are known to be sniffers, and if you have any enticing food scents around your home, you might find a bear scavenging your garden quite soon.
Garbage bins, compost piles, bird feeders, pet food, barbecue grills, and fragrant fruits are quite irresistible to a hungry bear. That’s why you want to make sure you store these items properly.
Deer
Bambi was definitely the cutest, most heartwarming (and heartwrenching) movie. However, life beats the movie. That’s why when you catch a bunch of Bambi’s and start chowing down on your crop before you even have the chance to taste them yourself, you need to take action.
Deer will eat virtually any vegetable they might find in your garden and nibble on your pretty flowers for dessert. If you don’t want these hungry buggers to devour your whole garden bed, you can try some of these tactics to keep them far away.
Deer are quite sensitive to smell, so if you decide to add some strong-scented plants around the garden, such as lavender, mint, chives, oregano, and marigolds, they will instantly mask the smell of the vegetables and deter deer.
If you want to go the extra mile and play with their sense of smell, you can simply spray a mix of garlic and chili powder or raw eggs around the plants. This mixture might have a funky smell that will successfully keep deer away from your garden. Naturally, another option is to build a deer fence and keep these hungry menaces out.
Rabbits
Did you ever imagine a small little rabbit that you would one day call your number one nemesis? I know, it sounds sci-fi. In the gardening world, it still applies. Rabbits are quite voracious munchers, as they leave clean-cut damage in your garden.
They also love to eat beans, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, cilantro, parsley, berries, and even ornamental flowers. They love to gnaw on shrubs and trees, so if you spot any plants or bark with some bite marks and rabbit fecal pellets around them, you might as well conclude that you have rabbits that feed away from your crops.
Just like deer, rabbits are wonderful sniffers (but, perhaps, it was easy to tell from their twitching noses), which is exactly why the smell techniques we sometimes use to scare deer away might also apply to these hopping furballs.
Sprinkling Irish Spring soap shavings or even talcum powder around the plants might help keep rabbits away. Besides, you can also plant an onion and garlic border around the rabbit’s favorite plants, since rabbits dislike the pungent smell of these two vegetables.
Cats
If you have your own feline companions, then you must know how annoying it can get when they start biting, scratching, or even pawing on your plants. At times, you might even catch cats turning your vegetable garden into one huge litter box.
Cats love eating plants because they enjoy the texture of fiber in their mouth. Over time, they developed a liking for zinnias and marigolds. If you want to stop your cat from eating your plants and crops, the best thing you can do is to build their own. I know, sounds strange.
But it works. Cats love eating cat grass, catnip, valerian, licorice root, and mint. That’s why planting them in a separate area might help them steer clear of your prized greens. If you have issues with cats from your neighborhood, you can also try covering your garden beds with citrus peelings, coffee grounds, and even human hair.
Bully birds
If you thought bullying only happens in school, think again. If you are wondering why it’s been over a month and the seeds you planted still haven’t sprouted, there are high chances that bully birds ate all your seeds before they even had the chance to grow.
Bully birds, just as blue jays, grackles, crows, sparrows, and pigeons, love feeding on sunflower seeds, wheat, corn, and millet. If they’re super hungry, they will eat any seed they can find on the ground.
To keep bully birds away from your newly sowed seeds, try to get them a feeder filled with seeds they like so they can eat from there and not from the soil. You can also cover your new sows with a garden net or mesh cover to keep seedlings extra safe from these hungry flying bullies.
Squirrels
Have you seen any half-eaten fruits or veggies scattered around the yard? Are there small shallow dug-up holes on your garden bed? If your answer is yes, the you probably have a squirrel problem.
If you found this article useful, we also recommend checking: Easy Green Thumb: 7 Cacti & Succulents
