Annual Squirrel Tomato battle

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I asked for the clippings of dog hair from my local groomer and spread them around the garden -- no problems with any furry friends nibbling at the veggies!

Cayenne Pepper is the number one ingredient in even the commercial squirrel repellent products. There are some homemade spray recipes based on cayenne pepper that are cheap to make and easy to apply at www.squirrelrepellent.net. Best of luck with an age old problem.

The best control is to tent the entire tomato planting with fruit tree netting. Some gardeners have even built cages around the plants to keep the squirrels away.

Dennis - Johnson County Extension

I tried it off & on for a couple of years. I had liquid, from my deer hunting, with no effect. I tried the granuals, same thing.

The bucket trap & electric fence work better than anything. I used a rat trap for the ground squirrels, that had some success. Nothing else was close.

So far fox urine has kept them out of my yard... Shake away granules have worked so long as i keep up on it.

This brought a new curiosity however, there is now a swift fox in the neighborhood that seems to linger around my place. If he's feeding on the squirrels, moles and rabbits I suppose I can't consider it a problem unless he figures out how to get into my fenced yard.

I'm not against trapping/shooting/etc, I would just prefer not to deal with the bodies if possible.

So far fox urine has kept them out of my yard... Shake away granules have worked so long as i keep up on it.

This brought a new curiosity however, there is now a swift fox in the neighborhood that seems to linger around my place. If he's feeding on the squirrels, moles and rabbits I suppose I can't consider it a problem unless he figures out how to get into my fenced yard.

I'm not against trapping/shooting/etc, I would just prefer not to deal with the bodies if possible.

I've also had problems with squirrels, both tree squirrels & ground squirrels. Two things have worked:

1) Bucket trap. Take a 5-gallon bucket and place it where the squirrels will have access. I used a small board like a ramp up to the top. Then fill it half-full of water. Spread sunflower seeds on the water, completely cover the surface. Put some seeds at the end of the board, just above the water. The squirrels will go up the board, see the bucket "full" of seeds and jump in, where they drown.

Yes, it works, 2 weeks ago I checked it and had 3 ground squirrels in it. If you think it's cruel, maybe you'll consider paying my $1200 bill to replace the sidewalk that collapsed where the ground squirrels had tunnel under it.

2) Electric fence. This worked great for tree squirrels; last year it stopped them cold. I bought this at the Home Depot on 135th St. in OP, but not all of the HDs have them. Tractor Supply in Olathe also carries them. Mine was only $60 which included the energizer & 100' of wire. It isn't as good for ground squirrels probably because you can't let it touch the ground. So when you raise it up to clear anything on the ground, there's probably enough clearance for them to get through.

Last year, I didn't get the fence up until July. The squirrels had all but shredded the plants, taken every small tomato that was daring to grow. I put the fence up and almost none got past it and I got tons of tomatoes. It doesn't kill them but they know when they touch it.

You have my sympathy. Squirrels seem to wait until minutes before harvest to dine on our tomatoes. The best remedy is to exclude them by encasing your tomato area in chicken wire or hardware cloth, both around and above the tomatoes.
Repellants, including hot pepper spray, have shown themselves, at least in my garden, to be next to worthless.
Good luck.
Carole
Johnson County Extension Master Gardener

havahart cages

bait with peanut butter on the bottom of the trip mechanism and weight down the top with a heavy brick so they wont knock it over and scrape the PB from between the cage wires