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Tomatoes, towhees, and rats

Aji hombre

Aji hombre

Last few years I have lost half or more of my tomato crop to towhees and rats. Traps do kill a few, but in order not to kill too many birdies I've got to deploy at dusk and disarm by day--a big pain in the rear. My plan for this year is to stake and prune so that the ground stays clear up to around 12" before there's any foliage/cover. Think this will work? Any other suggestions?
 
Do you have a friend with a Rat Terrier they can loan you? An all natural way of controling small pests.
 
Here's a link to the stuff I use, Critter Ridder. The link is to a 1.25 pound shaker bottle, but they have a 5 pound available, too, which I recommend. If you read the reviews, you'll see it gets mixed ratings. It is really just crystallized black pepper and capsaicin, which deters a lot of rodents. But just like people, some seem not to figure things out and will keep coming back in spite of the unpleasantness it causes them. It did stop the problem I had, which was primarily squirrels and such digging in my pots and a groundhog eating my neighbor's veggies. (I only grew hot peppers, and after the first attempt, the groundhog left my pots alone and instead went for the neighbor's non-pepper garden.) You might consider getting the 1.25 pound shaker and see if it makes a difference for your problem or not before going for the 5-pound shaker.
 
TOAW: no rat terriers, but I can attest to the fact that two labs aren't worth a darn for pest control (except one of them killed a rabbit once, probably by licking it to death).

geeme: I'll predict that someone on this site will follow your link and buy some solely to try as a condiment. Within days there will be youtubes of young white males consuming spoonfuls of the stuff.
 
"TOAW: no rat terriers, but I can attest to the fact that two labs aren't worth a darn for pest control (except one of them killed a rabbit once, probably by licking it to death)." To bad My GSD use to go on critter patrol couple times at night. She never did figure why the possums kept disappering after I made her put them.
 
Okay, so I'm not convinced about Critter Ridder. I bought some, and it was looking all right--no further damage for a couple of nights... then yesterday evening I see some dirt flying out of a hole in one of the beds. A pocket gopher is busy at work. So I poured a generous amount of Critter Ridder down the hole thinking this ought to sting, heh heh. But the damn thing kept on working like nothing happened. Then I tried to skewer the bastard with my pitchfork when it came out, but I missed.
 
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