I live in the country and have creatures around all the time. Some of
them like to come near the house in the night to dig into my plant pots
- bonsai and others. I read about hot pepper wax and bought some. It
worked, but it was very expensive.

So I made my own version and it worked, too. I put chopped and pureed
chile peppers into grain alcohol to extract capsaicin. I also added some
ground black pepper. After infusing for a while, I added oil and whipped
it all together into a temporary suspension, mixed it with granite grit,
and ladelled it around the plants. Worked immediately. No more digging
in the pots.

But now I have a bumper crop of pepper plants. Some of my houseplant
containers have strong, healthy pepper plants producing huge amounts of
peppers. And they're seriously hot. I transplanted some (I must have had
100 seedlings) around the fenced area in back of the house where the
critters happily munch on the leaves, but don't bother the peppers at all.

Next season, I'll filter out the solids. It was funny watching the
seedlings beginning to develop, and until I remembered the peppery
possum preventer, I thought it might have been from the bird seed we put
out. Funny...

Pastorio

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