Deer, Coons, Possums Love My Garden – Help!!!
Hi Bob,
I am having trouble with the rabbits and raccoons digging up my plants (tiger lily, jack in the pulpit, trillium, ferns, daisies) and digging into and uprooting my tomato plants. They have been completely eating my parsley, celery and fennel (planted fennel 3 times). I have the garden surrounded by wire fencing to protect it from the deer, but they are digging underneath. I have tried the commercial invisible fencing from the garden centers, but no success. Is there an herbal repellant?? I do not want to use anything which will harm the animal.
Thanks!!
Taerie
Reader Comments
Hi Taerie,
Dog hair is what I am using to keep critters away from my tomato plants. And it’s working!
If you don’t have a shedding dog, go to Petsmart/Petco with plastic bags and ask the groomers for some.
A spray mixture of cayenne pepper, water and a tablespoon of dish soap is also a deterrant and an organic one. Problem is you have to keep applying it… and don’t forget to wash anything you eat thoroughly.
A friend of mine told me that he bought a cheap, battery operated radio and tuned it to some obnoxious rock station and put it in the middle of his veggie garden at night.
Hope this helps, Kathryn
Hey Taerie,
I would use an electric fence which you can find at Lowe’s etc. and they are not that expensive. Animals actually pick up the electrical energy prior to touching the wire in most cases, especially deer. I also assume much of the destruction occurs at night so you might also consider a motion detector light. I’ll cc Kathryn, Master Gardener, to see what suggestions she has.
bobj
My mother lives in the Raleigh area and has a great number of tress and bushes which for years were denied of bountiful harvests because of deer. One thing that she has found works: The adoption of one of our male cats. As apt dwellers, and avid cat rescuers, we had to send our male who had spraying problems off to live at grandmas and although he still sprays- his targets are the plants that the deer now hate.
Borrow a neighbor’s cat and give it a good squeeze?
Great idea Melida if you a cat lover. Never realized cats had that ward off scent. Wonder if there exists some form of commercial product that can also be used?
All great ideas, but remember animals are smart and they are responding to fear, which means they’re just not going to go away. They keep checking back. Eventually, they realize that it’s the same and not going to hurt them so they’ll come in and snack. The key is to change your technique once a week, move things around or keep adding to it. Other things you can do: sprinklers set to motion detector, tape of dogs barking connected to a motion detector, hang aluminum pie plates, you can paint them like flowers or designs, cut them so they twirl, etc., several long, strands of shiny mylar type ribbon attached to dowels they’ll blow in the wind, sparkly pinwheels for the ground or hanging – if necessary glue on glitter, a scarecrow that you can move around, especially if you or someone you know is clever enough to attach him to ball bearing platform so that he moves in the wind attached to a pole to stab in the ground with scarf, hair, clothing, etc. that will blow in the wind. These can be family projects. Plants they usually don’t like; holly, English Ivy, lavender, sage, thyme, aloe, plumbago, rosemary, magnolia. Eventually, they will get tired and just go away.