The Urban Permaculture Farm Magazine

I believe in being charitable. I am all for donating extra produce from my garden to the local shelter or food bank. In these hard times, it is always a good thing to offer. What I do have a problem with; however, is garden predators stealing my hard earned food.

Last year, I cleared out my long maturing spent spring crops, added compost and planted fall crops in mid-summer. By the time the first frost had arrived, I had installed my hoop covers and was ready to harvest broccoli, cauliflower, leafy greens and root crops all through our mild winter. I was really looking forward to the phenomena where carrots change starch for sugar after the first freeze. My kids love carrots and I really wanted to share candy carrots with them.

Unfortunately that never happened. Before I could harvest anything from my fall garden, the little monsters plundered my raised beds. We have a family of raccoons that live in the wetland buffer behind our house. The hoop covers didn’t even slow them down. One day I came home to water, opened the hoop and found carnage. Almost nothing was salvageable. While I agree that everyone’s got to eat, couldn’t they have chosen something else to eat?

So, my winter garden chores got another item on the to-do list. I researched the various options for controlling and deterring garden pests. There are countless ideas floating around out there, including organic options and having an outdoor dog. However, what I’ve found works best on my raccoons is granulized predator urine. It doesn’t smell and is non-toxic to animals and kids. I just sprinkle it around the entry points of my yard and garden and the smell keeps the raccoons away. I can tell it works because the family had actually worn a path in my yard between the street and the wetland. After using the product, a neighbor said he started seeing a family of raccoons wandering through his yard. This year I am using it anywhere I am growing food. I like to sprinkle it next to fences though especially under eaves as the rain doesn’t wash it away. That stuff works well for anything that would be afraid of coyotes or other mid-sized predators.

I understand there is a good long-term technological solution that involves a red light beam that makes the animals think there is an even bigger predator out there. And if you look, I’m sure there are countless recipes to cook up in your kitchen. I haven’t needed to try anything else since my method seems to work well.

Just remember, when the weather turns foul, you must remain diligent in controlling the pests in your garden. Otherwise, the fresh vegetables you grew through summer and fall to enjoy on cold winter nights will be raided for a quick snack by furry little monsters.

For more from Richard Davies click the link. http://ft2garden.powweb.com/sinfonian/