Rabbits/squirrels/groundhog—defeat

Ok permie friends, I’m feeling like I’ve met my match here and I’d love some tips. This is the third year in a row that my early spring garden has just been destroyed — leaves eaten, seedlings dug up, basically everything but alliums gone.

I tried fencing—knocked it over! I tried flat chicken wire—they dug through.

I have better luck later in summer by walling my tomatoes in with calendula and marigold, but it’s too early for that strategy now. Also tbh I think I benefit from the fact that my neighbors bring home potted tomatoes from HD and they provide a much easier meal.

Anyway, before I totally cede the garden beds until the flowers are grown, does anyone have any other strategies?

I use some panels from an old drop-pin style dog crate over my raised beds.   I also have a few others I made a wood frame from pallet boards and put hardware cloth over.   I use boards or bricks to put it just above the seedlings or young plants.    Most of what bothers my stuff are small critters so once my plants are big enough it's not a problem anymore and I can move the panel to a new bed that I'm starting up.   I also have some wire bins, like the ones that sit inside a chest freezer,  that I can put over bigger plants that need some protection (like my emerging rhubarb) until it's bigger.   It's not going to win any garden tour prizes in the spring but it's effective for me.  

I feel for you - but to help I need input!

1. Please give us some indication of your "garden zone" - it doesn't have to identify your location too closely, but some indication of frost-free dates and the sort of soil you're on.

2. Are there limitations to what sort of garden defenses you are allowed. You have posted this in "urban" and they sometimes have rules about fencing etc and I wouldn't want you to go to the trouble of doing serious fencing only to have the Dept of Making Us Sad insist you rip it all out!

3. Have you seen all 3 of the mentioned competitors doing damage or are you still trying to figure out, 'who dunnit'?

4. Have you got enough space to plant a garden for them, and a defended garden for you - seeds are cheap and it might work - but it also might not...

5. Have you looked at your willingness to see the "problem as the solution" and reduce the population of trouble makers? Squirrel is excellent according to my friend who actively traps them, and I've made bunny stew when needed. We try on our farm to use the owls as our primary control measure, but we aren't vegetarian and prefer well-fed (read - eating from my organic garden) animals than anything I could buy at a store.

For rabbits,  really,  I overseeded my lawn with clover and I leave it long.   We have lots of them in the yard all the time but they never bother my garden veggies and stuff themselves on the white clover in my yard!   Most of the digging in my veggie beds are squirrels and chipmunks.  

I would get a dog.

Trace is onto something with the dog. I’ve actually used dog hair tucked in under mulch to deter other animals.
Then there’s my big fake owl that stands guard to protect my fruit trees from squirrels. It just needs to be moved every few days.
For larger areas I use my trusty friend Jimmy. With craft brew in hand nothing comes close, not even people! 😂

I have to ask, what is eating your garden?  (Edit to say:  Sorry, I didn't pay attention to the title.  I read the post several times and didn't see those.)

Where I live it would be deer.  They ate the tomato plants a couple of nights ago.

Earlier this year, feral hogs got all my Egyptian Walking Onions, luckily they have grown back.  I am expecting a return visit.

Maybe furnish the critters an alternate area for them to feed.

The rabbits and bunnies love the spot under the bird feeder.  They come at alternate times and munch for an hour or two.  When they leave the little tiny birds we have munch whatever they left.

Scott Stiller wrote:Trace is onto something with the dog. I’ve actually used dog hair tucked in under mulch to deter other animals.
Then there’s my big fake owl that stands guard to protect my fruit trees from squirrels. It just needs to be moved every few days.
For larger areas I use my trusty friend Jimmy. With craft brew in hand nothing comes close, not even people! 😂

I understand them. Think I would very likely run away from Jimmy too...

I've got dogs (German Shepherds) , and maybe they help some, but in an urban location they cannot be outside without me and they are indoors when I'm at work or sleeping.   I'm sure animals know they live there, but it doesn't seem to stop the critters from enjoying my yard (and really, they are welcome and my space is designed to give them food and cover).   They DO enjoy sweeping the yard and chasing everything out when we go outdoors, but it's not the constant coverage like you'd get on a farm with a LGD or something.  

Heather Staas wrote:I've got dogs (German Shepherds) , and maybe they help some, but in an urban location they cannot be outside without me and they are indoors when I'm at work or sleeping.  

Is that a rule of an HOA or you're concerned for their safety or ?  I've lived in a rural area for the last ten years, but before that I was lived in very large cities and my dogs were always in my fenced yard while I was at work, and I had dog doors so they could choose the rest of the time.

Many of the reasons you mentioned.

As a dog trainer, it's important to me that my dogs are good neighbors.   They won't be outside barking at people trying to enjoy their own yards or "fighting" with the dogs in yards that share 3 of our outside fences.

Here, it's common to hear about people breaking into yards,  stealing dogs, or opening gates and letting dogs out.   We also have to be concerned with loose/ roaming dogs that I do not want having access to my dogs.

In this city, we also have barking ordinances.   Dogs cannot bark for more than 10 mins without being reported as a nuisance/ disturbance of the peace.  I rather agree that 10 minutes is more than enough time for a barking dog to go on uninterrupted.   As a dog trainer, a barking dog is a dog that needs assistance.

My dogs also don't WANT to be outdoors without me.   If I even step in to refill my coffee cup,  they stand at the door, with a ball in their mouth,  waiting and waiting for me to come back outside.  

Plus,  racoons, skunks, porcupines,  even rats can injure a dog if they are big enough/defensive enough.  Feral cats.   Outdoor hazards that I avoid exposing my dogs to unsupervised.

Heather Staas wrote:Many of the reasons you mentioned.

As a dog trainer, it's important to me that my dogs are good neighbors.   They won't be outside barking at people trying to enjoy their own yards or "fighting" with the dogs in yards that share 3 of our outside fences.

Here, it's common to hear about people breaking into yards,  stealing dogs, or opening gates and letting dogs out.   We also have to be concerned with loose/ roaming dogs that I do not want having access to my dogs.

In this city, we also have barking ordinances.   Dogs cannot bark for more than 10 mins without being reported as a nuisance/ disturbance of the peace.  I rather agree that 10 minutes is more than enough time for a barking dog to go on uninterrupted.   As a dog trainer, a barking dog is a dog that needs assistance.

My dogs also don't WANT to be outdoors without me.   If I even step in to refill my coffee cup,  they stand at the door, with a ball in their mouth,  waiting and waiting for me to come back outside.  

Plus,  racoons, skunks, porcupines,  even rats can injure a dog if they are big enough/defensive enough.  Feral cats.   Outdoor hazards that I avoid exposing my dogs to unsupervised.

That makes sense.  If my dogs were nuisance barkers, I wouldn't leave them out either.  

I have always had good fences, and being in the city, they were always locked, so I wasn't concerned about people letting them out, or stray dogs getting in.

Breed makes an enormous difference for most of these things.  My dogs would far rather be outside than in while I'm at work.  Dog door always worked really well for me.  On hot days, the dogs would be inside in the A/C, but otherwise, you would most often find them outside, lying around in the shade.

As far as raccoons, skunks and the like, I never saw any of those animals when I lived in cities.  I have lots of them now, but porcupines are the only one that concern me, and while they don't seem to be too bright, I've never had one climb a fence to get into the dog area.  I have had two of my dogs bite porcupines while we were walking the property, and it's a bad situation, but not one that can be totally avoided where I live.  With the dog breeds I have, other animals are dispatched quickly.  My living situation now makes large, protective breeds important and LGDs are bred to do exactly what I need a dog to do.

Having a dog that lives outside is definitely a deterrent.

I always have heard that a person will not have snakes if they have an outside dog.

Having a small dog that lives inside is just something to keep squirrels and rabbits amused, especially as munch on birdseed.

I decided to live in harmony with the squirrels and rabbits by teaching the dog that she is not allowed to chase them.

Trace Oswald wrote:

Heather Staas wrote:I've got dogs (German Shepherds) , and maybe they help some, but in an urban location they cannot be outside without me and they are indoors when I'm at work or sleeping.  

Is that a rule of an HOA or you're concerned for their safety or ?  I've lived in a rural area for the last ten years, but before that I was lived in very large cities and my dogs were always in my fenced yard while I was at work, and I had dog doors so they could choose the rest of the time.

With our last 2 dogs, they would tunnel out under the fence if left unattended in the yard for more than 10 minutes.  Because of that, they lost their outdoor freedom.  

For things coming up from the ground I've used two options. Where I live now I covered the ground of my entire raised bed garden area with hardware cloth, works great. When I lived back in the suburbs I would boil water with garlic, hot chiles and castor oil and pour that down the holes. It took a couple months but whatever creatures I had coming up went away.

For rabbits and squirrels cages/fencing are your best bet in my experience.

My mom uses a combination of mesh covering her crops and that egg spray you make and ferment for a few days. She lives backed up to a wooded area with a ton of animals, deer, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, etc (no groundhogs where she lives) and manages to keep her garden pretty intact. I don't have her exact recipe but there are a lot online (this one looks like hers: https://tinyurl.com/2p8kbe99) and she just reapplies it after heavy rains or once a week or so.

My sister used an ultrasonic repellant for the rodents in her yard and said it reduced their numbers significantly (not lethally, just running them off).

Maybe getting an owl box and coaxing some birds or prey to hang out around your garden would be helpful as one of your layers of defense!

Finally, garden defense...... in that way madness lies, as told by writer Peter Barrett in his hilarious "Full Metal Redneck" post: https://www.acookblog.com/2012/07/full-metal-redneck.html

even if the dogs are outside- there have been years where the mice have eaten the seeds out of my seed starting trays...which were sitting on top of the dog's kennel. Where he sleeps, with no door. Either the mice were ninjas or he just didn't care. And this is a shepherd/pittie that will happily turn the world upside down if he smells a mouse in the garden (we had a house with voles in the yard, and he turned it into a moonscape within about half an hour).
Can you encourage them to pee somewhere near where the damage occurs? Or even better, collect the pee and distribute it in those areas, diluted?

As automatic shooting systems are illegal smell is your best bet.
You need some kind of a predator (dog will do) and some kind of absorbing material (fabric?) to be soaked in its urine.
Another option is imitation of birds (falcon etc) (sometimes even picture on the wall will do).
Also, the recording of an attacking bird of pray works well - if your neighbors do not mind.
Good luck.

P.S. No idea what can be done with deer.

+1 to the LGD (and fencing) ... our shepherd/wolf mix is unusual ... she just doesn't bark at all. She eats anything, especially if it runs and she can catch it.

Squirrels are generally safe, because there is a tree every foot or so. Rabbits are somewhat safe, because they are fast (but they don't hang around the house too much). Deer run away ... Elk would stand their ground and kick her, but luckily they are "passing through" kind of animals.

Anything else gets caught and eaten ...

For the mice/rats who have managed to avoid her, they almost always get taken by the JAWZ traps, which I have everywhere ... don't want, or can't have, an LGD? These traps are amazing to work with ... easy to set, easy to release (the dead critter), and the bait (peanut butter) lasts forever. In fact, once the trap has been there awhile, the mice just march to it like there is a piper somewhere, regardless of whether or not the bait is refilled.

Fencing, LGD's, JAWZ are the magic recipe, and fencing never ends ... so, very little pest problems these days.

Stink bugs, on the other hand ...