Guarding your vegetable garden from decay and damage can be a tricky process. In particular, animals like deer, rabbits, and moles can easily demolish large amounts of your plants’ bounty. The good thing is that there are actually some ways you can try to keep these animals away.
Ways to Keep Animals Out of Your Garden
- Identify the creature. Start by distinguishing which animal is actually destroying your yard, then learn a little about its habits. This information will be crucial for designing an effective solution.
- Avoid making your garden attractive to wildlife. Get rid of nesting or hiding areas like tall grasslands and brush piles. Start sealing off access to crawl/entry spaces underneath your porch and reduce access to food sources by covering compost piles and cleaning up birdseeds.
- Consider some of the control methods. Just pick the one(s) most suitable to your particular situation.
- Probably the only guaranteed way to keep domestic and wild animals away from your yard is fencing. Although this method can be costly to shut out large animals like deer, it may be the only option to protect your prized garden from expensive damage. If you are planning to use fencing as a barrier, remember that fences work best when the animal has no idea what that blockade is protecting. A hungry creature that knows food is available will definitely try harder to get through any obstruction. It’s highly recommended to use solid fences as they offer adequate visual block so these animals don’t know what they are actually missing. Another alternative is electric fences. Although more pricey and require maintenance, electric fences provide less impact on your own view and even be more effective than the solid ones.
- Scent repellents like castor oil, garlic clips, and predator urine can be efficient temporary solutions; however, these needs to be monitored regularly and be re-applied from time to time to remain effective. Repellent products made from hot peppers can discourage rabbits, and some plants like fritillaria and castor bean can put off rodents.
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- Visual and auditory scare devices. These include motion-activated water sprayers, ultra-sonic repellers, visual scare tools like the use of faux predators and reflective tapes, and noise makers. Although the effectiveness of these pieces of equipment usually diminishes over time (since pests can eventually become familiar with them), it’s the surprise effect that you are after. That’s why planning on changing up your strategies from time to time is extremely helpful and use of variety is important.
- Probably the only guaranteed way to keep domestic and wild animals away from your yard is fencing. Although this method can be costly to shut out large animals like deer, it may be the only option to protect your prized garden from expensive damage. If you are planning to use fencing as a barrier, remember that fences work best when the animal has no idea what that blockade is protecting. A hungry creature that knows food is available will definitely try harder to get through any obstruction. It’s highly recommended to use solid fences as they offer adequate visual block so these animals don’t know what they are actually missing. Another alternative is electric fences. Although more pricey and require maintenance, electric fences provide less impact on your own view and even be more effective than the solid ones.
Regardless of how frustrated you are already with the harm these unwanted visitors have brought upon your much-loved garden, bear in mind that eradication is never an option. Shooting the perpetrator is not okay whether that’s by personal choice or simply because of zoning restrictions. Yes, there are poison baits that are unbelievably effective against some pests but they could pose serious danger to pets too. Scissor traps and smoke bombs kill certain types of animals but are absolutely gruesome solutions. Keep in mind that a more humane and holistic approach is to find out how to successfully co-exist with wildlife – to allow these animals (despite the damage they can cause) to go about their lives as we go about ours.
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