How to protect your garden from squirrels can often be a difficult battle. Do you have a hard time keeping them from eating your berries or your prized tomatoes? Hopefully, this article will help you understand what squirrels eat and how you can protect your homegrown food from getting wiped out by the little critters.
One of the things that squirrels seem to love to eat from our garden is strawberries. Yes, squirrels love to eat our strawberries and it's a bummer. I want them all to myself for eating or baking a yummy strawberry peach cobbler.
I am sharing how we save our crops & our favorite garden products that REALLY WORK! Before that, here is everything you need to know about what squirrels eat so you know which plants & trees to save.
What Do Squirrels Eat?
Most types of squirrels are vegetarians. They prefer to consume mostly fruits, nuts, and vegetables. From what I have read, there are a lot of foods that are safe for squirrels that we often grow in our own yards.
Here is just a few of the most popular ones:
- Apples
- Stone fruits
- Tomatoes
- Avocados
- Berries
- Corn
- Mushrooms
- Nuts
Top Ways to Protect Your Plants from Animals
Below are 5 ways to keep them out of your garden to protect your fruits, vegetables, and nuts from squirrels. Some involve building structures around your plants and others are suggestions for not making your yard a 24-hour all you can eat restaurant.
Try one or a combo of these tactics to squirrel proof your produce. All of these ideas will help keep animals, such as squirrels, rabbits, and deer, out of your yard.
Cover Plants with Mesh or Netting
If your garden is not fenced in and enclosed with a material like chickenwire, you are welcoming squirrels to snack all day long. If you cannot afford to build or have space for a large enclosure, getting rolls of garden mesh will help. We wrap this around all our fruit trees & it works great.
Build Enclosed Containers
Squirrels will try to get through anything so if you want to completely encage your plants you can do that. Be sure it is surrounded on all sides and from above. They can also dig so if you are planting in a raised bed with a wood plank side they will probably not get in underground. Pinterest, DIY sites, & even retailers like Home Depot share how to build a garden enclosure yourself.
Add Plants That Squirrels Do Not Like
They do not like the smell of these flowers and may keep them away. Try planting one of a few of these flowers; marigolds, daffodils, geraniums, hyacinth, or lily-of-the-valley. They also do not like strong-smelling plants such as peppermint, garlic, onion, or pepper.
We always plant marigolds each spring & have a large peppermint plant in a plot that is great year round. Try adding these to your garden for your enjoyment and not theirs.
Use Squirrel Repellents or Deterrents
We have personally tried sprinkling cayenne pepper around and that seemed to only work for a day or so and they figured it out or were over it. Peppermint oil is a better option.
We have also used faux bird of prey statues too, we have the owl in our yard and move it around every few days. Our dog at first was more scared of it which made us laugh.
Do Not Attract Them to Your Yard
Squirrels will stay forever if they find ample food that is easy to access. Keeping the buffet to a minimum will help. Keep bird feeders, cat, or dog food out of your yard. Cover and contain all trash, yard clippings, or compost piles.
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