I have recently returned to gardening after a couple of years off looking after my sick mother. During that time I did little apart from mow the lawn and some occasional weeding and the local squirrels, grown fat on my uncollected apples have become fit and bold and aggressive. This last spring and summer they ate or dug up virtually everything I planted in the garden: they dug up and ate all my spring anemone bulbs from their tubs, bit off all the tomatoes and capsicum plants in grow bags, dug up the antirrhinum and sunflowers seedlings in the border, dug up the lawn for buried apples and then finally this summer, the one remaining sunflower which was growing on its own away from anything else and had got to 10 feet? They ran up the stalk and bit the head off. I tried a cat scarer and that scared the cats off but not the squirrels. It seems impossible to stop them digging up or eating EVERYTHING I plant. It never used to be a problem but I assume they have got bold after having free run of the garden for two years. Can anyone recommend any plants or vegetables (apart from daffodils) that squirrels don't like? I have a small town garden in London.

Honeyrose

On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 15:41:18 +0000, honeyrose
wrote:


I have recently returned to gardening after a couple of years off
looking after my sick mother. During that time I did little apart from
mow the lawn and some occasional weeding and the local squirrels, grown
fat on my uncollected apples have become fit and bold and aggressive.
This last spring and summer they ate or dug up virtually everything I
planted in the garden: they dug up and ate all my spring anemone bulbs
from their tubs, bit off all the tomatoes and capsicum plants in grow
bags, dug up the antirrhinum and sunflowers seedlings in the border,
dug up the lawn for buried apples and then finally this summer, the one
remaining sunflower which was growing on its own away from anything else
and had got to 10 feet? They ran up the stalk and bit the head off. I
tried a cat scarer and that scared the cats off but not the squirrels.
It seems impossible to stop them digging up or eating EVERYTHING I
plant. It never used to be a problem but I assume they have got bold
after having free run of the garden for two years. Can anyone recommend
any plants or vegetables (apart from daffodils) that squirrels don't
like? I have a small town garden in London.

Honeyrose


A few observations/questions:

(a) What constitutes 'small'?

(b) I have seen suggestions that feeding the blighters may distract
them from more decorative foliage. I remain unconvinced - its a bit
like providing controlled drugs to junkies; appeasment won't work in
the long term.

(c) Buy traps and Google for 'Brunswick Stew'.

(d) As an outside possibility grow LOTS of really hot Chilli Peppers.

I have yet to identify a predator that can successfully control grey
squirrels without Ahem intervention with weapons of mass rodent
destruction.

Good Luck
JonH

p.s. Occasionally, the less careful (or more desperate) specimens
fall into water butts. They don't seem to swim well. A moat might be
a possibility?

Kill 'em, only real solution. They are legally classed as vermin, like
rats, mice etc.

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

I have put up a feeder for them, and normally, as long as it has food in it
for them, they will stay away from most of the rest of the garden. We also
have bird feeders that the squirrels will get into if they don't have
something in their's.

I did notice them getting an 4 or 5 apples and a few peaches, but I had so
many I didn't mind. I have a water container for the birds that the
squirrels share as long we change the water regularly. It might be that
they went to the fruit, when we let the water stay there over 2 days without
changing it. During the hot part of the year, it needed changing more often
than we did it.

Dwayne



"honeyrose" wrote in message
...

"honeyrose" wrote in message
...

I have recently returned to gardening after a couple of years off
looking after my sick mother. During that time I did little apart from
mow the lawn and some occasional weeding and the local squirrels, grown
fat on my uncollected apples have become fit and bold and aggressive.
This last spring and summer they ate or dug up virtually everything I
planted in the garden: they dug up and ate all my spring anemone bulbs
from their tubs, bit off all the tomatoes and capsicum plants in grow
bags, dug up the antirrhinum and sunflowers seedlings in the border,
dug up the lawn for buried apples and then finally this summer, the one
remaining sunflower which was growing on its own away from anything else
and had got to 10 feet? They ran up the stalk and bit the head off. I
tried a cat scarer and that scared the cats off but not the squirrels.
It seems impossible to stop them digging up or eating EVERYTHING I
plant. It never used to be a problem but I assume they have got bold
after having free run of the garden for two years. Can anyone recommend
any plants or vegetables (apart from daffodils) that squirrels don't
like? I have a small town garden in London.

Honeyrose

The ONLY answer is to catch the buggers and kill them.

"Dwayne" wrote in message
...
I have put up a feeder for them, and normally, as long as it has food in it
for them, they will stay away from most of the rest of the garden. We also
have bird feeders that the squirrels will get into if they don't have
something in their's.

I did notice them getting an 4 or 5 apples and a few peaches, but I had so
many I didn't mind. I have a water container for the birds that the
squirrels share as long we change the water regularly. It might be that
they went to the fruit, when we let the water stay there over 2 days
without changing it. During the hot part of the year, it needed changing
more often than we did it.

You should be bloody ashamed of yourself, feeding the vermin, I would have
thought that was against the law.

On Nov 15, 7:41 am, honeyrose
wrote:
I have recently returned to gardening after a couple of years off
looking after my sick mother. During that time I did little apart from
mow the lawn and some occasional weeding and the local squirrels, grown
fat on my uncollected apples have become fit and bold and aggressive.
This last spring and summer they ate or dug up virtually everything I
planted in the garden: they dug up and ate all my spring anemone bulbs
from their tubs, bit off all the tomatoes and capsicum plants in grow
bags, dug up the antirrhinum and sunflowers seedlings in the border,
dug up the lawn for buried apples and then finally this summer, the one
remaining sunflower which was growing on its own away from anything else
and had got to 10 feet? They ran up the stalk and bit the head off. I
tried a cat scarer and that scared the cats off but not the squirrels.
It seems impossible to stop them digging up or eating EVERYTHING I
plant. It never used to be a problem but I assume they have got bold
after having free run of the garden for two years. Can anyone recommend
any plants or vegetables (apart from daffodils) that squirrels don't
like? I have a small town garden in London.

Honeyrose

--
honeyrose

Around here housecats (if not overfed) will predate on squirrels.
I like the other ideas too though. I know squirrels feed
preferentially from bird feeders (being an arboreal critter) so
placing a well-greased feeder above a cistern with downward pointing
spikes around the sides should quickly provide you with a lot of
drowned rodents for use as fertilizer.
Or you could set up a platform to encourage them to visit a feeder,
and electrocute them as they walk across it.
Or you could just eliminate their nesting sites: If the population
density falls below a certain point, squirrels will stay off the
ground, hence away from your veggies.

Don

"Don H3" wrote in message
...

Around here housecats (if not overfed) will predate on squirrels.
I like the other ideas too though. I know squirrels feed
preferentially from bird feeders (being an arboreal critter) so
placing a well-greased feeder above a cistern with downward pointing
spikes around the sides should quickly provide you with a lot of
drowned rodents for use as fertilizer.
Or you could set up a platform to encourage them to visit a feeder,
and electrocute them as they walk across it.
Or you could just eliminate their nesting sites: If the population
density falls below a certain point, squirrels will stay off the
ground, hence away from your veggies.

Don

Don you have some wonderful ideas there for eradicating another vermin ....
cats :-))

Mike


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"Dwayne" wrote in message
...
I have put up a feeder for them, and normally, as long as it has food in it
for them, they will stay away from most of the rest of the garden. We also
have bird feeders that the squirrels will get into if they don't have
something in their's.

I just wondered, do you feed rats and mice as well?

And if not, why not?

Cos you seem to like feeding other vermin!

Of course I dont feed mice or rats? They dont eat my garden when they are
hungry. The squirrels do.

Dwayne

"Alan Holmes" wrote in message
news

"Dwayne" wrote in message
...
I have put up a feeder for them, and normally, as long as it has food in
it for them, they will stay away from most of the rest of the garden. We
also have bird feeders that the squirrels will get into if they don't have
something in their's.

I just wondered, do you feed rats and mice as well?

And if not, why not?

Cos you seem to like feeding other vermin!

On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:49:06 -0600, "Dwayne" wrote:

Of course I dont feed mice or rats? They dont eat my garden when they are
hungry. The squirrels do.

Dwayne

You should be killed along with the squirrels!

That is what your dad said when he caught me and your mother in bed
together. Dwayne


Alan Holmes wrote in message
...
On Sat, 17 Nov 2007 19:49:06 -0600, "Dwayne" wrote:

Of course I dont feed mice or rats? They dont eat my garden when they are
hungry. The squirrels do.

Dwayne

You should be killed along with the squirrels!

Why not a dangling bird feeder to attract the vermin, and then invite
the lads round from off the council estate with their air guns, and
whilst they are bobbing around pop the vermin off.

A bit like the ping pong ball on top of a water jet at the fair. Gr8
fun.

"thelane" wrote in message
...
Why not a dangling bird feeder to attract the vermin, and then invite
the lads round from off the council estate with their air guns, and
whilst they are bobbing around pop the vermin off.


Air Guns?

;-{

Mike


--
www.rnshipmates.co.uk for ALL Royal Navy Association matters
www.rneba.org.uk. The Royal Naval Electrical Branch Association.
'THE' Association to find your ex-Greenie mess mates.
www.iowtours.com for all ex-Service Reunions. More being added regularly
"Navy Days" Portsmouth 25th - 27th July 2008. RN Shipmates will be there.

On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 16:25:29 GMT, thelane wrote
and included this (or some of this):

Why not a dangling bird feeder to attract the vermin, and then invite
the lads round from off the council estate with their air guns, and
whilst they are bobbing around pop the vermin off.

Are you allowed to pop off at the council estate lads, then?

--
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