Billy wrote:
In article ,
"Natural Girl" wrote:

Frank wrote:
On 5/9/2013 7:56 AM, Pat Kiewicz wrote:
Gus said:


What non-lethal methods work best to keep city squirrels away from
tomatoes?
It is a serious problem here. I wouldn't mind sharing some
tomatoes, but the squirrels here are very rude and do not share.
And actually taunt. Taking a bite out of a perfectly good tomato
and then leaving it. Building a wire cage probably is the best
method, but I hear they
can even get through those. And I'm not all that handy at
building things. Last year, putting soaking a rag with vinegar
about every 3 or so
days seemed to work for a while. Though at the end of the summer,
even that was not deterring them that well.

Late to the party, but...

1) Provide a source of drinking water for the squirrels, birds,
etc. They may be going after the tomatoes mainly for the water
content. 2) My daughter ran an experiment as an assignment for
one of her
zoology classes. She offered various 'flavors' of peanuts to
hungry winter squirrels, including smoked, two levels of hot pepper
seasoned and wasabi flavored peanuts.

Their obvious preference was for plain or salted peanuts. They
would eat the hot pepper and smoked peanuts. They mainly ignored
the wasabi
flavored. Which suggests that wasabi (similarly, horse radish or
mustard oil) could be worth looking into as a squirrel deterent.

3) When all else fails, a cage of 1" hex wire netting ("chicken
wire") will exclude squirrels. You need to bend the wire out at the
bottom (to prevent them going under) and either let the top flop
outward or put a cap on the cage (to prevent them going over).
I've used panels of 48" chicken
wire stapled to 1" x 2" strapping. The panels can be moved around
as needed. Tie them using temporary stakes. You can make circles,
triangles,
etc. They should be rolled up and stashed out of the weather when
not needed . 4) A sturdy 4' fence which is lined with chicken wire
(bent out or
buried several inches deep at the bottom) and topped with a shock
wire or two will keep out a whole lot of potential pests.


Someone sent me this this morning:

http://tinyurl.com/cgprqsp

ok .. I have to say that discussion is histerical!!!!!!!!

And she can't spell either.

yeah .. you got me. {{hangs head in shame}}

--
Natural Girl