Anyone ever try a cayenne in water spray bottle solution for this, any tips?
Get a terrier. They're little murder machines bred only for slaughter. Alternately, pay one of the neighborhood kids to sit out back with a bb gun and take care of it.
Failing that - Rat traps, or live traps if you're feeling merciful though squirrels are intensely territorial so make sure to drop them at least a few miles away.
Really the only way to get rid of them is to kill or capture faster than they can breed. Even if you remove the ones there now new ones will agressively move in.
Maybe you could take up falconry?
My tactic is that my neighborhood is absolutely stacked with outdoor and stray cats.
We have dozens of cats around but for some reason they don't pose much trouble to the squirrels. Maybe the british squirrels are just built different?
My neighbor used three things:
- making stuff taste/smell worse: coffee grounds, cayene/garlic spray on vegetable plants
- making being there less nice: a sprinkler that was activated by movement and a slightly higher fence
- giving them an alternative: an offering place outside the garden with fresh water and twice daily vegetables and nuts they would rather have
Results were okay, but varied. What really did change was having a young dog that would chase everything.
I think i will try spray + coffee grounds, no-cost and some bonus compost
You drape it over the top. You can do the same thing with "bird netting", but bird netting is plastic and if the critter is REALLY wanting in will chew through it.
Taking up falconry or squirrel hunting is probably the most foolproof solution here, as has already been suggested. An easier but less surefire one would be to put in a raptor perch and hope something moves in nearby and starts using it. I will probably do this at some point to deal with the ground squirrels and rabbits in my garden. Would be cooler to become an actual falconer but that’s… a bit more of a commitment.
So far, bird netting and bug netting draped over the top keep the rodents out of the few beds that are covered at my place. If the beans are pretty small you might need to get some thick garden hoop wire and cut lengths to support the weight of the netting while the plants are still small.
Possibly set up something that moves and is shiny. An aluminum pie pan on a string hanging off of a stick might move around enough in the breeze to deter the rodent, move the setup every day or two to try to avoid the critter getting used to it.
Local junk store or garage sale might have a plastic/ceramic owl/hawk that you can set around the garden. Garden gnomes might work too. If you can stand the creep factor old dolls could work. In any case you'll want to move them a few times a week.
Are their raptors in the area that might hunt the squirrels? If so, you can try to get an idea of which birds are in the area, find samples of their calls online and if you can get a speaker pointed towards the garden play those sounds at random times. Probably would work best if you can get a fake bird set up in the garden.
how are you, as a man, going to let another man (squirrel) get your nut (beans)I've never had obnoxious squirrels but the first time I grew strawberries there would be a cone shaped hole in them as soon as they got ripe, it's very frustrating.
Squirrels love to dig in my pots every fucking Fall and knock over all my babies. I used to just sprinkle cayenne all over the soil (these are all potted plants but tbh I'd imagine doing it to in-ground stuff would be fine, provided you reapplied it after rain/etc) and it worked well enough to keep them away. Also had the bonus of keeping my roommate's dog away too, since he'd like to try and get at the Vick's Plant I have (for whatever goddamn reason. dog loved the minty smell i guess).
Maybe a protective net? Works for bugs but idk about squirrels.
