Gleaner Min Yi Su shared her thoughts about squirrels with us.
If you have been noticing little holes in your garden beds and seeds that you planted weeks ago have not even sprouted their first leaves, you may have a squirrel problem.
I’ve been looking into different ways to stop squirrels from using my garden as an open buffet. And the most humane way is to make my garden as unattractive to them as possible. After some research, I found a few humane ways.
First is to make your garden smell bad to them. You could put garlic powder or hot pepper around it. Second, you could make it look bad to them by putting a predator decoy in your garden vicinity. The trick with this is you’d have to move your predator around regularly. Third is put netting over your beds until your plants are big enough to survive a few nibbles. I have heard of making an owl house for your backyard, but I have not tested this.
I used the combination of the first three and I have noticed some seeds managed to germinate. I also accept that this is nature‘s way of thinning my garden. And I suppose I can share some of my bounty to one of nature’s original gleaners.