Squirrels can be a huge problem for gardeners. They dig up the bulbs, chomp off the flowers, and climb into the fruit trees to take one bite out of every single piece of fruit. For those of us with strawberry beds, squirrels can wipe out an entire crop of berries within 15 minutes.
While some people think that feeding squirrels peanuts and seeds may keep them away from the garden produce, in practice this really doesn’t work. My neighbor tried this one year and the surplus of food resulted in a population explosion of over 200 squirrels the following year.
For those of you with a pesky squirrel problem in the strawberry beds, one of these solutions may work for you.
Sage and Lavender
One of my organic gardening books noted that squirrels don’t like sage and lavender. They certainly seem to stay out of my xeriscape beds, so I’ll be trying this trick with this season’s batch of strawberries.
Plastic forks
The gal at the garden center at Kroegers told me that she keeps squirrels out of her strawberry beds with dozens and dozens of plastic forks, placed in the ground pointy side up.
Mothballs
Sprinkling moth balls around strawberry beds was some old folk advice that I found in a 1905 cookbook. This bit of advice has also popped up on a couple of blogs with one woman noting that she has had great success with this method.
Fruit tree netting
These days, fruit tree netting is made of polyethylene which is difficult for squirrels to chomp through. Fruit nets are designed to keep birds out of fruit trees, but can be used to protect your strawberry beds as well. Since squirrels will climb on top of the net, or even burrow underneath it to reach those berries, the net will have to be tented with the edges either buried in the ground or stapled into railroad ties or 4 x 4 cedar poles. A 15 x 45 foot piece of netting costs around $25.
Coffee Grounds
In another blog, some one noted that she picks up industrial sized bags of used coffee grounds from her local Starbucks and sprinkles those around the beds.
Havahart trap
Havahart makes a humane trap for small rodents. I have an older model, and used it to trap those 200 squirrels the summer we were overrun with the critters. The traps can be set with generous amounts of peanut butter and placed where the squirrels like to hang out. A biologist friend told us that to prevent the squirrels from finding their way back, they need to be released on the other side of the river or a fair distance away.
Build a chicken wire cover
One of the best squirrel proof solutions I’ve ever seen was something my husband invented a number of years back. He built a series of long triangle frames that measured 2ft x 2ft x 2ft wide and were 10 feet long. The frames were made of redwood 1 by 2s and covered on two sides with chicken wire. These squirrel proof frames were light enough for us to pick up and move, but too heavy for the squirrels to squeeze themselves under.
