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Garden Gate:  Need some gardening advice  |
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sweettea
True Blue Farmgirl
55 Posts
Candace
St Cloud
MN
USA
55 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 10 2012 : 7:33:08 PM
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I’m completing plans for my garden and planting my seedlings inside this month and thought I would ask advice now, before spring comes. I have a pest problem with my garden. Two years in a row now I have planted garlic in my garden and both years have very poor results. I’ve followed directions exactly down to measuring depth and distance apart with a ruler. In the spring, nothing comes up and I see little indentations where my garlic bulbs were.
I have an idea of what’s been going on. This fall I planted daffodil bulbs in my English flower garden in the front yard. I was washing dishes one day this fall and looking out my kitchen window at where I planted the daffodil bulbs and saw a squirrel contentedly munching on something. I looked closer and he was diligently digging up my bulbs and one by one munching on them! I dashed outside and he grabbed the bulb he was eating and raced up the tree with it. I suspect the squirrels also ate my sunflowers I planted last spring. We live in a fairly wooded subdivision in town with a healthy population of squirrels. Does anyone have any ideas for how to keep the squirrels out of my garden and from eating my garlic, daffodil, etc?
On the bright side…if spring comes and I see daffodils, garlic and sunflowers sprouting from a squirrel’s nest in one of our trees I will know who the culprit is! 
"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein |
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natesgirl
True Blue Farmgirl
1735 Posts
angela
martinsville
indiana
USA
1735 Posts |
Posted - Jan 10 2012 : 8:40:24 PM
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Try gettin ahold of your local dog groomers and ask them to save the hair for you. Then sprinkle it right on the ground and plants themselves. It works wonders for our garden.
I also plant garlic in the fall in a raised bed. It drowns and rots very easily in a wet season. It also is every bugs favorite meal. I prefer to keep it seperate and tend to it more carefully than my other plants.
Farmgirl Sister #1438
God - Gardening - Family - Is anything else important? |
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edlund33
True Blue Farmgirl
1507 Posts
Marilyn
Renton
WA
USA
1507 Posts |
Posted - Jan 11 2012 : 07:24:34 AM
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I've never tried this idea on soil, but it works great to keep squirrels from chewing on our wood doors and siding......make a solution of Tobasco sauce and water and spray it where you don't want them to be. After they get into it a couple of times they remember and will stop going to that area.
I've also used paprika successfully to keep rabbits out of my garden, and I would imagine that using any type of spice from the pepper family would work for squirrels as well if sprinkled on the ground.
Good luck....squirrels can be very annoying!
Cheers! ~ Marilyn
Farm Girl No. 1100
http://blueskyanddaisies.blogspot.com
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. - Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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sweettea
True Blue Farmgirl
55 Posts
Candace
St Cloud
MN
USA
55 Posts |
Posted - Jan 11 2012 : 5:14:54 PM
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Thank you! I'm going to try both of your ideas. Also, I didn't know it was every bugs favorite meal. I will begin to carefully care for my garlic, follow your suggestions, and see what happens. Thanks!
"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein |
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Fiddlehead Farm
True Blue Farmgirl
4562 Posts
Diane
Waupaca
WI
USA
4562 Posts |
Posted - Jan 12 2012 : 09:54:14 AM
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My DH sets traps and eats them! I heard that the dog hair works, but I have never tried it. I have dogs so the squirrels don't really bother my garden, but they do love my bird feeders!
http://studiodiphotosite.shutterfly.com/
farmgirl sister #922
Don't go with the flow...you are the flow.
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
- E. B. White |
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sweettea
True Blue Farmgirl
55 Posts
Candace
St Cloud
MN
USA
55 Posts |
Posted - Jan 13 2012 : 09:00:27 AM
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I hadn't thought of setting traps! Thank you!
"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." Albert Einstein |
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Garden Gate: Need some gardening advice |
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Need some gardening advice
