Critters

By Mary Jo Baur

As any gardener knows, there are animals out there that are not friendly to our gardening efforts.  Perhaps you've been bothered by squirrels, groundhogs, chipmunks, voles, deer or even your own cat or dog.  There are ways to avoid having them eat or dig up all our flowers and vegetables, but it takes some doing.  Ideally we would all have an 8-foot high fence to discourage deer, rabbits, wild turkeys, or whatever.  But that may be cost-prohibitive.  One way to deal with the issue is to use plants that deer do not like to munch on such as anything with a furry or prickly texture.  You can try various deer repellants available at garden centers or hardware stores.  They may work for a while, but need to be reapplied after a rain.  Deer in my yard particularly love the hosta and tulips.  I sometimes use plastic milk crates in the spring to protect those plants until they grow too big for that method.

If you have trouble with animals eating the roots of your plants or the bulbs you have planted for springtime blooms, you can plant them surrounded by hardware cloth, which is like a mesh.  I have not tried this yet, but I seem to have lots of voles this year, so I may give this method a try.

Squirrels and chipmunks may raid your birdfeeders and they are hard to stop.  Sometimes a baffle which attaches to the pole will keep them away.  Some people put up squirrel feeders with dried ears of corn to discourage them from eating seeds meant for the birds.  Personally, I'm not willing to spend money to feed them.  Let them eat nuts!