Advice for maniacal squirrels in garden??

[sammymama]

Hi Mamas,

I am about to embark on planting my first veggie garden and I'm so excited!  We have been quite transient the last few years so it's really cool to be in one place long enough (not to mention with a big yard) to get this project off the ground.  However - the neighborhood we're in (in northern Virginia) is home to some seriously hardcore squirrels.  They are everywhere, scared of nothing - and they eat everything in sight.  I carved our pumpkins a few days before Halloween last year and they literally *mauled* them - and just plain took off with the small ones I had out for DD!  I have never seen anything like that before.  So, it makes me wonder - is anything actually going to have a chance to grow in my garden or are they going to full-on attack?  Are there tricks/tips to dealing with crazy squirrels?

Many thanks,

Sammy

[loraxc]

We have squirrel problems. They like to make off with my tomatoes, and I have one now who loves to chew off nice green leaves of almost anything, the jerk. I use twist-ties and berry baskets to "cage" my large tomato fruits as they ripen. I also sprinkle plants with cayenne at the base to discourage chewing (unfortunately some plants seem to get a little damaged by this, so use a lighter hand). This winter I actually resorted to covering my entired raised bed of lettuce with fine window screening. It's only this year that we have had this one squirrel obsessed with our greens, though--in the past they just took tomatoes, mostly.

[mindymom]

Ugh.  We have crazy squirrels up here, too - I have had exactly the same experience with jack-o-lanterns.  Last year I built a very large wooden frame around my tomato plants, covered it in chicken wire, and then buried the bottom in rocks.  That seemed to keep them out, although my tomatoes didn't do well last year, so maybe they just went looking for greener pastures.  They also regularly eat my sunflowers and sweet peppers, though hot peppers and eggplants they seem to leave alone after the first nibble or two, and I've never had one that ate beans or peas.  (I've never had one that ate lettuce either, but I wouldn't put it past the cheeky bastards!)  They also will dig in your outdoor pots and in any freshly disturbed soil just to see what's in there, so after planting anything from seed I cover the ground with chicken wire until the soil settles. 

I have tried installing a birdbath, but I think that thing about them eating stuff for the water is just an internet rumor, because they will literally sit on the side of the birdbath eating a tomato.  I've also tried cayenne powder, which didn't seem to help unless I put it directly on the fruit, and then only after they'd checked two or three, and only until it rained.  I've tried covering the tomatoes in nylons as well, but the f%#!-ing things pull the fruits off the stems trying to get at them and then leave them hanging in the stocking all chewed up and gross.  Berry baskets...interesting idea!

I try to keep in mind that squirrels are a species that routinely overpopulate their habitat (sound like any other species we know?) and regularly die from food shortage, so they're not doing it just to mess with me.  But sometimes it's hard.

[Erinz]

Would it be practical to get a cat? When my husband and I started dating he lived far far out in the hills and  had a MASSIVE burrowing/ground squirrel problem. He got a cat who loved to hunt and she took the popluation way down.  I have seen home-made traps made from plastic garbage cans using a very similar method to this: http://www.ehow.com/how_6653960_make-multi_catch-rat-trap.html a   

Worked quite well! The downside is you have to fish them out, but can do that with a shovel and bury them.

[kitchensqueen]

We have the same psychotic squirrels that you guys have. Last fall they destroyed/stole all of the gourds and pumpkins we had on our back deck. We tried the cayenne pepper trick, but our squirrel seems to like cayenne pepper. Go figure. Maybe I'll try powdered habeneros this year?

And then this winter, the squirrels took it a step further and destroyed a string of snowflake lights that we had strung between two posts on the deck. I woke up the morning after a storm and noticed that a few of the plastic snowflakes were missing from the string of lights, so I thought they just blew off from the high winds. But upon further inspection, the wires had been chewed. I didn't think it was possible that the squirrels would do this, until the next day when I actually saw one chewing off one of the lights and making off with it...

We even have a bit of a community cat in our apartment complex, but he could care less about squirrels. He just sits and watches them, half amused that they exist. No desire to be a predator at all.

I'm pretty worried about the veggies that I'll have outside this year - our first year with a proper outdoor garden. From what I've read, the only foolproof way to keep the squirrels out is to cage everything... so we'll probably have to build some chicken wire cages if it gets really bad...