What's with the squirrels?
lindac
11 years ago
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centralcacyclist
11 years agocentralcacyclist
11 years agoRelated Discussions
What vegetable plants will squirrels eat?
Comments (13)Being another CA gardener, here is what I know about squirrels. They live for 3 or 4 years typically. The young ones are sometimes unaware of your vegetables. Older, craftier squirrels can be real pests. They take figs and young green apples from my fruit trees. They don't particularly like oranges but will sample a few. My dad protects the apples by putting plastic bags over the apples and stapling the bags shut. Figs are more difficult to guard. If it as a good crop, there's plenty for everybody. They like the blossoms of zukes, melons, pumpkins and will eat those. They may take the fruit of these plants later on. Tomatoes they will sample, but not too many (usually the biggest ones which they bite a few times then discard for you to find). Controlling them: a dog or cat can do it. If you have hawks or raptors around, they will nail squirrels for you. I've heard you can spray cayenne pepper around and it may repel them, but cayenne pepper is expensive and I'm not sure that works anyway. Scaring them is also good. They are naturally timid and maybe they will go elsewhere, but more likely they will come back, since they don't seem very smart and are likely not to remember where that person who yells and chases at them lives. Bottom line is: they are annoying, sometimes maddening. I would find it difficult to try to kill them by any method. Some years are better than others in terms of what they sample. Perhaps feeding them peanuts or the like in one section of your yard would decrease your losses. Pests are a part of gardening though....See MoreSunflowers - what about squirrels?
Comments (1)If you are trying to save the seeds to your sunflowers then you need to put some sort of bag over them once the seeds start developing. I have large burlap bags that I just throw over top of the heads. I've also used old pairs of boxers, which usually give visitors a good laugh. You want to make sure that the heads can breathe or they will mildew. If there is a heavy rain, then you want to change the wet bags with dry ones. Sometimes the squirrels will try to chew their way through the bags. They will also chew their way through the stem to get the head on the ground. There isn't much you can do to stop that. Another thing to distract the squirrels is put large amounts of sunflower seeds somewhere else in the yard, away from your crop. I usually fill the bird feeder with seed, and then throw seed on the ground around the bird feeder every day. The squirrels spend most of the day rooting around in the grass for seeds, and ignore my sunflowers growing in the garden....See MoreHosta missing ID-Help please?
Comments (8)Hi Pietertje, I just ran out to try and get a quick picture of my younger Island Charm, to compare, before the rain rolls in. Brrrr..chilly wind and damp this morning. I also took the dandelion digger to see if I could find a tag buried near the mystery hosta. I always plant my own name tag with info on source, date purchased, # of eyes at one or two o'clock. If there is a nursery tag, that one usually goes at 11 o'clock. I have looked before, but apparently not far enough away from the crown. I just found it, totally buried. The tip should have been showing, but wasn't. Soooooo.....Dave's guess is spot on! Moonstruck it is! I am delighted, since I have two healthy Island Charms. Lots of people hate them, but they do well for me. Also, Moonstruck is one of my favorite movies, so that may have influenced my purchase decision. I think Island Charm has more oval-shaped leaves than the former mystery hosta. Both Moonstruck and I.C. have slightly ruffled leaves, at least early in the season, but this Moonstruck has a more pronounced twist to it also. Again, thanks for your persistence. I wouldn't have gone out digging unless you had posted again. My smalller Island Charm... ~Bunnycat (happy happy happy)...See MoreWhat fruits can survive squirrels?
Comments (9)Squirrels are a tough nut to crack--so to speak, Cat! The squirrel baffles David mentioned are a possibility, but squirrels seem to be smarter than human beings, and it's not at all unusual for them to figure out how to get past the baffle. If you were using one on a tree you'd need to be absolutely certain it was high enough on the trunk that they couldn't just jump up past it--and they can really jump! And if the tree(s) is anywhere near another tree or a building, or ANYTHING they could go up and then jump down onto the tree, they will very definitely do it! At the last house I lived at there was a BIG silver maple in the backyard and I tried for YEARS to hang bird feeders from the tree that the squirrels couldn't get to! Total failure! I tried store bought and homemade baffles and they ALWAYS figured out how to get past them eventually. The last thing I tried was hanging a feeder with a wire that was as thin as sewing thread, and the feeder was at least 6' down from the branch. The squirrels just shinnied down the wire---so fine that I couldn't even see it from inside the house! Sometimes they'd slip and fall when they were "going down the wire," and when they eventually got tired of doing it that way they just chewed thru the wire so the feeder fell to the ground! I never did find a way to stop them and after the "wire" experiment I stopped hanging feeders in the tree and kept them hung from the eaves of the house over the concrete patio on the back of the house, and that way I could at least scare them away as soon as I saw them, and I pretty much switched to feeding thistle and safflower, which squirrels don't like, but when I put even just a little bit of sunflower out they continued to be a Public Nuisance right up until I moved out! Like I said, if they really want something, they're definitely smarter than humans! About the only thing I can think of that "might" help (really not sure!) would be to get one of the motion-activated water thingies that spray anything that comes into the field of the sensor. They're supposed to work pretty well for domestic animals--dogs, cats, etc., but I don't know if a squirrel would eventually decide it was just a nice bath and ignore it or not! They supposedly work because of the element of surprise, and squirrels are definitely skittish things, so maybe it would work. The couple times I checked them out, they're not cheap, and you need to leave the water turned on for them to work, so you need to be sure you're using a GOOD hose that isn't gonna blow out or you could wind up with a BIG water bill! But it is at least something for you to consider, and it seems to me that it could conceivably work to scare birds away too if you got one that could be aimed high enough to cause considerable sudden motion of the leaves. Other than that I don't have any suggestions. Cutting down some of the big trees should help--a LITTLE bit--to "redirect" some of them to other yards with more trees, but if there's something in your yard they want, they'll find it and keep on looking for ways to get it! This year shortly after I started planting fall bulbs I found a couple places where they were digging DEEP looking for them! I'm still waiting on a couple things to see how many come up and how many became expensive Squirrel Chowder! I was able to solve that problem for the rest of the winter by laying chicken wire and my pea and cuke trellises over the areas where they had been digging and where I was afraid they might start digging! That, of course, was in addition to all the chicken wire I have on top of my veggie garden to keep the neighbor's cats from using it as a sandbox! My backyard looked like a wire factory! You might want to keep an eye out for squirrel nests in your or any neighbor trees that you're friends with and if you see them building a nest destroy it so they'll seek out a friendlier place to set up housekeeping. If they're nesting very close to you the babies will become accustomed to making themselves at home in your yard, just making the situation even worse. And be sure you're not attracting them by having dog food outside or anything else they might want like fruit/food scraps on a compost pile. If you're not familiar with squirrel baffles, I'm linking a search page so you can see what David and I are talking about. Good luck in your battle with Squirrelus obnoxiousii! Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Squirrel baffles!...See Morelindac
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