Effin Squirrels....needs some advice

Hey Guys,

how the heck do you deal with squirrels.  i have had tomatoes stolen each of the past 3 nights.  I put up bird netting over them, and staked the bird netting into the ground, yet more were missing and even left one in front of my back door >.<
 
How do you guys deal with your Squirrel problem?  I am using even more stakes on the netting but are there any other techniques?
 
I am the wrong guy to ask....
 
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.177 Caliber, 1300 fps with PBA Platinum (1000 fps with lead), 4X32 Air Rifle Scope. IGT™ Technology
 
geeme said:
Try Critter Ridder - it's basically a mix of black pepper and capsaicin crystals. You should be able to find it at Lowes or Home Depot.
That stuff doesn't work at all, my rabbits roll around in it.
fiveohmike said:
Wish I could shoot them, even pellet guns are illegal to fire in town >.<
If it is happening at night, I'd be shocked if it is a squirrel. They are not nocturnal eaters. 
 
Then the other option is a rat...but it would have to be a bigass rat to run off with some of these tomatoes lol.
 
Do sonic repellents work?
 
Worst after dark offenders here are the Racoons, by far. The Possums are second, but nothing like those pesky varmints the Racoons.
 
fiveohmike said:
Then the other option is a rat...but it would have to be a bigass rat to run off with some of these tomatoes lol.
 
Do sonic repellents work?
You need to do some night recon or get a game trail cam. 
 
I have heard there are sprinklers that trigger from a motion sensor so every time an animal comes by the sprinklers go off and scare them away.  I haven't researchedf this but there must be something like it out there.  The post I read said they never need to water!
 
I've a abundance of squirrels in my backyard.
         I do have luck with the Critter Ritter stuff. I use it around my plants in buckets by the house (not cheap $17) but the massive down-pours we've had wash it away but when fresh it has worked for me. Had a damn hole deep enough I thought another squirrel was going to off another and cram it in that hole ...lol.
   In my backyard garden I just have some plastic 1" daim. bird/critter fencing (bought at Lowes also) that I cut in half to 24" high and attached t some short stakes.  Never had one issue with 4 legged critters there. I like most critters but i've got too much invested in these this year and if push comes to shove.... it will be smoked squirrel for dinner.
 
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Now I do feed them on ocassion and they make the grandkid laugh but I hired one too keep a watchful eye and deal with any violators (which might explain the deeper hole I found a few weeks back ;)  )
 
"Vinnie The Pepper Protector" ...also may be called "Dinner" should he fail. (nuts can enhance the flavor of meats when consumed...Anthony Bourdain told me so & makes sense)
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but do try the fencing and Critter Ritter as Vinnie, like most quirrels, do whatever the hell they want. :twisted:
 
OhioHeat
 
Yeah.... lol... about those squirrels... my Dad is aspiring to be the owner of a a tree farm, and he has spent the last couple of years acquiring 10s of thousands of seeds from great specimens of native kentucky trees.  This year he has germinated several thousand trees.  However, unfortunately it appears that he cannot grow walnut trees... the reason being that the squirrels will not spare one single seed.  In fact, they will dig up the seed after it has already grown into a 1 foot tree.  We call the one squirrel in particular the $5,000 squirrel.   Its gotten so bad that there are incredibly gnarly shards of walnut everywhere.  I was walking around the porch bare-footed the other day when I felt a horrible pain in my foot... I raised my leg up and looked down to see crazy sharp peices of walnut on the ground... and cussed them.  I then lowered my foot to continue walking..... and holy hell the shard i had stepped on was still in my foot..... the second step just drove it in like a wedge splits wood :eek:   What i saw on the ground had been the other half of the walnut shell.  That was over a week ago... and the puncture wound is still a little sore.  I love the little squirrels, but I am about to say to hell with them. :mad:
 
When i married, my wife came with cats. The squirrels that had been eating my tomatoes no longer get on the ground, and i haven't lost a tomato to one since. Put a bowl of dry cat food out, and see if you can get someones cat to hang around your garden, if you don't want an outside cat of your own.
 
hahaha... that is true.  Our cats are getting soo old tho.... they dont do anything during the day... they only hunt at night, and the squirrels arent even theiving then. 
 
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Home Improvement Writer: Kevin Vandenbroek

If you have a garden, you probably have a squirrel story. Most of them involve one of these critters getting into the veggie patch and massacring the soon-to-be-harvested stuff. There are a couple of tried-and-true methods to fix the problem. There are also many unusual ways that some folks have discovered to rid their property of the destruction. Mind you, we said “rid their property of the destruction.” We didn’t say kill the squirrel.
 
One of the solutions simply requires you to treat the critters nicely. Give them options.
 
For instance, on the other end of the yard, far away from your prized plants, put-in a feeder and fill it with sunflower seeds. If they’re getting something better than a green bean or blueberry, let them feast on what they actually like.
 



  1. 1.Unique Solutions
    A natural squirrel repellent is hot and spicy things. Substances like cayenne pepper sprinkled in the garden dissuades the rodents from sampling the vegetables once they got to experience the miracle of the Scoville scale.
     
    Another clever way to weaponize your plants is to make a spray using diced-up jalapeño peppers, vinegar and water. Let the solution sit for a day, then spritz the area that attracts the squirrels.
     
    Garlic is a great way to ward off the little critters, too. You’re going to want to use the same solution as you did with the jalapeño peppers, only this time substitute the heat with the garlic. The only downside to both of these methods is that you’ll have to reapply the concoction after it rains.
     
    Similar to mice, squirrels hate the smell of peppermint. They will avoid it because it gives off such a strong aroma. Go to a local health food store and pick up a bottle. Put a few drops of peppermint oil on a bunch of cotton balls, then disperse the cotton balls in various areas of the garden. You might also want to think about surrounding your garden with live peppermint plants.
     
    We once heard that by taking an old pair of nylons and loading them with a few mothballs, it discouraged squirrels from hanging around the garden. Just tie the stockings to a 2-foot high tomato stake, but make sure you don’t rest the thing on a plant. You don’t want your vegetables to taste like naphtha.
Dogs and cats love squirrels, in a bad way. They’ll chase down any critter that likes to run-away from them. As a matter of fact, there’s a breed of dog that was brought into being for the specific purpose of hunting down small creatures. It’s called the Rat Terrier.
 
Maybe you can’t handle getting a pet, consider erecting a few barn owl houses. A family of these critters can eat around quite a few squirrels a week. Talk to your local pet store expert on the best food to use to lure a few barn owls. Once they nest in the box you built, stop feeding them.
 
Whatever you choose, be kind to these pocket monsters. Squirrels carry an important ingredient to the health of the environment. A living organism known as microriza develops and grows in the digestive tract of the squirrel and only the squirrel. As they relieve themselves, they spread microriza and this operates like nematodes in other plants helping plant growth.
 
In other words, you don’t want to destroy something that actually has a place in the environment. You just want to bug them enough so that they’ll stay out of the veggie patch.
 
JoynersHotPeppers said:
That stuff doesn't work at all, my rabbits roll around in it. 
We have squirrels, rabbits, groundhogs, chipmunks, skunks, deer, turkey, and lord knows what else. Works fine for me.
 
That said, I will point out I use the dry kind in a shaker. I learned last year they also make a spray-on kind, and most people complain the spray-on kind doesn't work. Not sure if you used the dry kind or not, but if you did, them's some stankin' rabbits!
 
And agree - squirrels are not nocturnal eaters. But rabbits, deer, and skunks definitely are. Not sure about the groundhog.
 
I used dry as well, just saying my rabbits love it but they have also grown up living along side hot peppers their whole lives. I had both the spray and dry all around these plants and this is the rabbit taking a break before it starts to roll all over it.
 
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