(I'm just asking for it with that title, I know).
Because my garden is always containerized (roof restrictions for city living), I don't have any actual earth to plant in. So, for years, I bought my tulips and daffodils and hyacinths in the spring, and replanted them and enjoyed them immensely.
But a few years ago, I got tired of that - I wanted to grow my own, dammit! - so I ordered a bunch of gorgeous bulbs in mixed colors and planted like crazy. I added bone meal. I put them in the ground at exactly the right time. I watered and watched and waited. I was THRILLED at the expectation of green shoots and grand flowers the following spring.
For like a day.
On Day 2, little thieving, fiendish rats-with-fluffy-tails came along and ate every last one of my bulbs. I wanted to kill them. I still do.
In the end, I settled with having an enormous mutual animosity with them (don't get me wrong - if I could, I'd wring their necks - gardeners the world over know exactly how I feel). I run outside and throw things at them and scream like a maniac when I see them on my roof. This year, they actually stole whole ripe heirloom tomatoes and ate only half before getting bored and leaving the rest as a taunt for me to find.
In the years since that fated fall, I've figured out how to put my bulbs in the fridge over the winter and then "force" them in the spring. In the meantime, I have a seriously bad relationship with my local rats-with-fluffy-tails. I am willing to take a contract out on them should anyone want to help me with my murderous inclinations.
-Heather... off to watch The Godfather for some inspiration...
i think its great the way u have controlled ur anger!!! it must be frustrating!!
One thing I learned: don’t EVER use bone meal if you have yard rodents. The smell will actually attract them to your bulbs, which they will then happily devour. Instead, use a phosphate product which has the same benefits as bone meal without the added rodent attraction.
I will lend you my cat. He seems to think that catching squirrels is his civic duty. I no longer have a problem with disppearing tomatos or bulbs (or crickets or mice… the list goes on)
As someone who “frees” spiders from her living room, I can honestly say I hate squirrels too. This summer they stole every single tomato off our four plants, munched on three jade plants *and* a cactus, and then ate through our hammock. Our hammock! The other day I found a rat-with-fluffy-tail burrowing comfortably in a large aloe plant not two feet from my glass kitchen door. Seriously, what the hell? This Fall I’m hesitant to get pumpkins since last year they ate through all of them even though we doused them with hot pepper oil and even sprayed them with hair spray (I figured the ozone was a small price to pay for dead squirrels). Alas, they kept on coming back. And our kitty is no match for these [insert-swear-word-here]. What’s an eco city girl to do?
Laura - your hot pepper oil and hairspray descriptions just made my day. I feel your pain and have been laughing out loud, reading your post.
Chris - you should hire your cat out - you could make a fortune.
JennyWren - great insight… I am going to try to find some good phosphates for us to tip in the spring (not chemically-derived). My grandmother used to swear by throwing dishsoap on lilac bushes…
Lodan - loads of yoga helps with the anger thing, but I’d still murder them if I could catch ‘em.
Finally - Nash - wish we were in Africa with you…
But then, who’d be Biting??? ;)
I’ll admit that it’s hard to figure out how this would fit into the city gardening scheme of things, but most people I know out here in the country catch the squirrels, kill them (by drowning or other more gruesome means), and offer them as a contribution to the predator food chain in the area. My dog Libby “murders” quite a few, too. But even killing the squirrels is only a temporary solution, as new rodents just move right into any vacated territory! Here’s my funny story: I’m one of those spider-freeing folks like Laura, so one year I tried live-trapping my pesky squirrels to relocate them to an uninhabited area about 5 miles away from my garden. I put a drop of food coloring on their little heads before I released them. In less than 2 weeks I was catching squirrels with blue forehead spots!! I trapped and moved 38 of them before I admitted defeat. I guess ya gotta admire their dedication, the little #@*s!
Kris, I admire your dedication at “blue-dotting” them a whole lot more than I admire theirs at coming back. ;)
About the rodents in your flowers. We live in Placerville, ID and the only flowers we can have is bulbs. I too tried tulips but found that the deer, ground, tree and mountain squriels love bulbs but I read somewhere that they won’t touch daffodills. So in the past 5 years I have planted 600 bulbs on our 6.5 acres. They bloom late, usually the last of April to the middle of May. So they are my Mother’s Day flowers for the past 5 years. The best daffodills are from Costco in the bag of 100. I tried other local brands but they were punier or didn’t come up at all. Daffodils come in many colors but I have not tried the colors. But after the 5-7 feet of snow melts in May my daffodils are a very welcome site. My neighbors love to travel down my 800 foot driveway as it is lined with them. I feed them whatever bulb fertilizer is on sale each year. The wild animals leave them alone I have not lost one bulb in the past 5 years. Also they just keep multiplying for years and years. So You might try the daffoldils as the bulb you can trust to keep coming back and not be in some wild things’ stomach!
The animals do not touch daffodil bulbs because they are poisonous...just don’t ket your kids or dogs or cats eat them. I plant my tulips in a circle and surround them with dafs..I also put crushed oyster shells (found in local farm supply houses) on the bottom and sides of the hole (good source of phosphorous and prevents burrowing voles from getting at them) and cover them with cayenne pepper (the powder not the spray). Make sure you have good drainage as tulips rot if in standing water. Most tulips have a limited lifetime tho there are some classified as perennial. Hope this helps
Chicken wire. Plant your bulbs in a little chicken wire cage. The squirrels cannot dig through the wire, but the shoots of the bulbs will fit nicely through the openings in the wire. For containers, plant and then insert chicken wire to cover container (go down the sides a bit, too) and then cover with another inch or two of soil. Laugh maniacally.
For those with rat and mice problems use potatoe flakes and a dish of water by the potatoe flakes the rats and mice eat this and run out to get some air and die. And as for squirrels use a rag soaked in ammonia and hang near the entrance where they are coming from these tricks work everytime.
There’s a book called “Outwitting Squirrels: 101 Cunning Stratagems to Reduce Dramatically the Egregious Misappropriation of Seed from Your Birdfeeder by Squirrels” by Bill Adler. Amazon has some used copies for less than a dollar. It’s geared towards keeping them off your birdfeeder, but may have some garden suggestions too. If memory serves, it even has an “if all else fails” chapter at the back which includes suggestions such as feeding them toffee apples until their mouths are stuck shut, or putting a piranha moat around the base of the birdfeeder.
This may not solve anything, but it is a funny dead squirrel story… my parents live in a suburban area and there is a dead squirrel hanging between the power lines in thier backyard. The dummy electrocuted himself! My dad said that its been up there, straddled between 2 wires for a month now and his tail just blows in the wind!
I find all this hating on animals pretty disturbing from purpordedly eco-friendly people. Squirrels are part of the ecosystem guys! Aren’t we the ones who invaded their habitat, and yet we expect them to be convenient and unobtrosive. If only all the animals of the world would just be cute and out of the way and revolve around our needs and wants…
Sarah obviously does not have an outdoor garden.
Rats with tails Haters Unite!
I have the same squirrel problem, but worse. My squirrels tried to eat my house. That’s right, my house. We had to get vinyl siding because of the demonic squirrels that have invaded my yard, so trust me...it could be worse :).
Hey, didn’t folks used to eat squirrel? Apparently it’s out of fashion now and those furry little monsters know it. Perhaps a good recipe ... hmmm
LOL
You’re simply going to have to fence them out of the tomatoes. Just wrap or bend the fencing around your pots. It will be a pain to research which size fencing you’ll need (if you can get away with chickenwire that is by far the easiest) and set it up but oh so satisfying to finally enjoy your tomatoes. Also-- I do feel tomatoes picked just as they begin to blush and allowed to ripen indoors not only have the same great taste but also avoid a lot of pest damage. If you can’t have it perfect- you can at least have it. :) But fencing is your only hope. I’m waiting for the Garden Supply people in vermont to add ‘squirrel fencing’ to their boxed tomato kits because a lot of people need it!
Try neem cake! It’s organic, safe and even good for earthworms. My squirrels are so deadly they nearly destroyed a staghorn fern my grandfather started before I was born (and you don’t need to know how old I am now!) I planted sunflower seeds last week—a big no-no for people with squirrels—and they’re coming up now totally undisturbed. I didn’t expect them to sprout at all, it really was more of an experiment than plants I wanted to grow.
what is neem cake, and where can one purchase it???
Get cats and remove nest from property.
I agree with Sarah, and I do have a garden that is regularly invaded by squirrels. If I relied on my garden for food to live off of, I might feel different. However, since it is just there for me to enjoy, I happily share it with the little fellows. Yes, I wish that they would realize that they don’t like tomatoes, rather than taking a bite of each one before disregarding it. I found the best way to get them to leave my garden alone is by leaving a big bowl of nuts and seeds for them. They’d rather eat that than my stuff any day.
Yo. You didn’t mention Baby YO. And I think one of the yogurts (maybe stoneybrook, or baby yo) makes a new low-sugar version which is really good. Yogurt it should be noted is best eaten sugar free. So don’t use the vanilla kind in your smoothie, use plain. Let the sugar from the fruit be enough...along with the OJ. I don’t think, by the way, that I’ve ever seen Horizon’s OJ. Do they really have that in Montana? Oh, and how am I supposed to blog about yogurt? Get added to the type pad list (what is that) or did I just blog via a comment? big kiss
jen in Africa.
Posted by: jen nash | October 13, 2005 at 03:38 AM