Keeping Animals out of your Garden

A garden is someone’s sacred place, a meditation site where one can create and nurture life and in some cases, get a delicious reward from it. Unfortunately, you are not the only one craving fresh radishes and oregano; there are others, most of the four-legged and hairy variety that want your delicious veggies. Here are some ways to protect your valuable vegetables from being munched on by the uninvited backyard connoisseur.

Know your Enemy

As is the case with any conflict, you need to know who, or rather what is your opponent. This can be accomplished through hair and scat samples left at the scene of the crime. Paw prints are also a great indicator of knowing what you are up against, and apparently seeing the critter or critters helps too. So, if you are being pilfered of your fruits and vegetables try to utilize these trademarks leftovers and go online to see what it is that has made its way into your garden.

Make it Unappealing

You do not want to advertise your garden as a place where they can live a comfy lifestyle. Get rid of bushes, brush piles and tall grass. Also reduce the inclusion of any additional food sources such as covering your compost pile or cleaning up or relocating bird feeders.

Proactive Control

Here are some more active measures you can take to dissuade garden intrusion.

Fences - An easy enough way of making it more difficult for them to get in. It may require some time and investment to establish, but a fence with an overall mesh covering will exclude their ability to enter.

Repellents - There are a great variety of repellents that you can utilize to make animals want to stay away. These repellents include scents, and visual and auditory devises. Make sure you know that these specific repellents are ideal for driving away what has been eating your crops.

Pets - Sometimes you got to fight animal with animal, and your cat and dog are just the allies to do it. While your cat can control and neutralize small pest threats, such as mice and voles, your dog can scare off the larger threats like opossums and rabbits.

If you have pets that you allow to aid in garden guard duty make sure they are up to date on any and all vaccines they may need before defending your garden.

Live Traps - Trapping the varmints can ease your worry about your plants, but also allow you to stop the animals from eating your stuff humanely. You will have to find out if your state permits relocations, otherwise you may have to contact the Humane Society to aid you.

Eradication - The big one that most people have a problem with doing. Exterminating the threats will stop the intrusions into your property. Poison baits work but can be a threat to your pets. Smoke bombs and scissor traps kill certain types of pests but are a gruesome solution.

Green Thumb

Green Thumb always does the most it can when it comes to helping people out with landscaping. We have been working out of Eau Claire for several years, and in that time we have helped people and businesses alike achieve a higher quality of landscaping and design. If you have any questions on gardening or garden maintenance, don't hesitate to call us today. Our landscaping experts will always be happy to help out and lend some advice to gardeners. If you need additional help, call us at (715) 832-4553!