Preventing Squirrels From Eating My Pumpkins!
NEWS | Mommy Niri | October 17, 2011 at 8:03 amI have been at my wit’s end with pumpkins. I tried growing it (I will have to admit that the entire team had no luck – blame it on the weather) but caved in and bought 2 from Wilson Farms. We barely managed to get a chance to enjoy the view of our porch with them sitting on the railing when lo and behold we return home one day and found one eaten. I was aghast. I promised my tearful 4 year old girl that I would get another, meanwhile swearing under my breath knowing that a new one would most likely meet the same fate.
So I got on and asked my online peeps – How To Prevent Squirrels From Eating Pumpkins? Here were some suggestions I got:
- Get stinky squirrel repellant spray at the garden store. Be warned that the squirrel spray smells awful, so if it’s by your doorstep it gets a little rank.
- Spray them with hair spray.
- You can also use eucalyptus oil, but you have to reapply it quite often.
- I’ve heard garlic, but that might just be for pests.
- I think owl statues help keep squirrels out of your yard in general.
- Try sprinkling some cayenne pepper on and around them.
Thank you fine friends. So fingers crossed, here goes.
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Good luck. I’ve never even heard of critters eating pumpkins before…I think the cayenne pepper will work good. You can make a liquid solution so that it dries on the pumpkin. Or maybe spray on hair spray and then sprinkle. I know that when some outdoor critters taste the heat, they will leave garden items alone.
1) I envy you. We went to a pumpkin carving party in early October, and thanks to the warm weather our pumpkins were swarming with fruitflies…and then mold! Add the rain and warm weather, and one pumpkin went into the compost last week (the other one should have gone there, too!). I’d rather a nibbled pumpkin than a rotting, fruitfly-filled one.
2) We used to have that problem, of squirrels eating our pumpkins. Every year. We had a massive squirrel problem. But then our city (Medford) switched to city-issued garbage cans for the automated trucks, and the cans have heavy, hinged lids so the squirrels can no longer feed on all the trash, and now our pumpkins are safe from squirrels. So instead they can just…rot.
If you don’t already have lids on your trash cans, I highly recommend it. Yona’s idea (hairspray + cayenne) sounds like it would probably be very effective, too. Good luck!