How to Keep Squirrels Out Of Your Garden

They’re a perpetual nuisance, eat your tomatoes, tormentors of dogs and gardeners, and are acrobatic rats by another name. I have no soft spot for squirrels.

Squirrels eat the birdseed in the bird feeders, steal the raspberries, eat the corn, steal the tomatoes, and dig up flower bulbs relentlessly. There’s nothing like finding newly planted tulip bulbs ripped out of the garden bed, laying on the mulch with one bite taken out of each one. If they’re going to go to the trouble of digging the bulbs out, why not at least eat the whole thing!

One only learns about squirrels after being defeated by them time and time again. Unfortunately, my wife won’t let me shoot them, so I’ve had to experiment with “softer” methods.

9 tips to keep squirrels out of your garden

1. Bird netting

Place bird netting over berry bushes. This may deter the squirrels or they may chew right through it. Depends on how determined they are.

2. Trap them

Trap the squirrels with Havahart trap or a similar humane trap. For bait, use a mixture of peanut butter, raw oatmeal, and honey. Then release them far away from your property. However, where there’s one squirrel, there’s usually many more.

3. Don’t feed the squirrels

Don’t feed squirrels by hand, as that will only make them braver in your garden beds and your neighbors’.

4. Scare them away with motion-activated sprinklers

Motion-activated sprinklers give mixed results – they’re a deterrent at first, but once the squirrels realize they’re in no danger, the sprinklers may lose their effectiveness.

5. Ultrasonic motion detectors

Ultrasonic motion detectors work pretty well. Squirrels seem to absolutely hate the high pitch and flashing lights.

6. Train them away with animal repellent

I do give my garden beds a liberal soaking of a deer and rabbit repellent like Liquid Fence, which my squirrels just hate. I apply it to the bed for a few weeks until the squirrels are trained away from the area and seek their meals elsewhere. Use the Liquid Fence in newly planted vegetable and fruit beds as well, but back off as you near harvest, as the smell may contaminate the produce.

7. Protect flower bulbs from squirrels

There’s nothing more frustrating than seeing your newly planted garden bed full of holes from where squirrels dug up the flower bulbs you planted the day before. There are a couple of methods I use to protect my flower bulbs in the fall. The first is to plant the bulbs at the proper depth – as deep as possible. The general rule of thumb is to plant the bulb at a depth three times its vertical diameter, and if in doubt, err on the deep side of planting. At the soil’s surface, place a grid of hardware cloth over each bulb. When the squirrel hits the wire he’ll (in theory) stop digging and move on. The flower stalk will grow through the hardware cloth.

8. Offer a food source far away from your vegetables

You shouldn’t feed squirrels by hand, but you can attract squirrels with something irresistible to an area far away from your garden (even if it’s just on the other side of a small yard). I plant sunflowers on the opposite side of my property from my vegetable and fruit beds. This works astonishingly well and makes sense, as squirrels love sunflower seeds (check your bird feeders). But as sunflowers don’t produce seed until mid or late season, you also have to find an early-season deterrent like bags of corn.

9. Buy a dog or cat

The hair from dogs and cats is reported to be a deterrent, but my squirrels are so used to the smell that it doesn’t seem to phase them. On the other hand, some breeds of cats are born squirrel killers and I’ve seen… well, I’ll spare you the gruesome details.

But I’ve watched squirrels positively torment my dog Belle to no end – one of them literally made a flying leap right out of her jaws as she was about to bite down while chasing the rodent at high speed. The squirrel made his way up the brick wall to the chimney, where it sat and continued to torment my poor dog. She walked away crying. Squirrels are evil beasts.