How to Keep Racoons from Stealing the Sweet Corn and Squirrels from Digging up the Saffron Bulbs

The Situation

My neighbor warned me several months ago that I would probably begin to have problems with squirrels digging in my garden pots, as they had been digging in her potted plant until they killed it. Somehow, I managed to avoid this problem until just the last few weeks. I didn’t mind too terribly when they dug by the sweet corn, or over by the peppers, because they are hardy plants and can handle a little digging. However, when they started pulling up my saffron bulbs, I was pretty upset.

Imagine my frustration a few days later when I walk out to water the garden and generally bask in the glory that is raising vegetables for food, I notice that one of the ears of corn has been pulled off the stalk. Then another. I find the ears a few feet away, one big bite out of them, and the rest left for the ants. This is completely unacceptable! So I turn to some “experimental treatments” for my small mammal problem.



Chili Pepper

I did what I always do in times of emergency – Google! I found plenty of information suggesting sprinkling chili pepper around potted plants to prevent squirrels digging. So I used up my entire spice rack of chili and cayenne powders. This didn’t even work for a day.



The Magic Powder

I gave in and went to Home Depot. My trip started off spectacularly – I found someone to ask within minutes. Actually, I found two people. They were standing by some flowering plants, watching and talking about the bees that were swarming them. Just as I walk up, a bee flies right at the guy, and he jumps about a mile back! I say, “I’m looking for some squirrel repellant, can you help me out?” He says, “Yeah, get a pellet gun and some peanut bait!” We all laugh, the lady goes back to her outdoor checkstand, and he walks me indoors. Right inside, where I should have found it on my own, is tons of pest repellant options. He points at this one package, and tells me its 89% dried blood, the rest is chili powder. I’m feeling pretty despondent because I already tried chili powder and it didn’t work. He assured me that the blood smell mixed with the chili powder pain can do the trick. If that doesn’t work, he holds up a giant mousetrap. I giggle, and he says, “Nah, you can put the little mousetraps around and they’ll get a sting but it won’t kill them.” Armed with this knowledge I went home, put on some nitrile lab gloves, and liberally sprinkled the stinky pain on everything but my plants. I don’t want blood on my babies! Then I set a number of mousetraps where they’ve been digging the hardest and right at the base of the corn.



The Results

As I said, plain chili powder didn’t work. At all. However, the combination of dried blood, chili powder, and numerous mousetraps has worked like a charm for weeks now. I think it may be the dried blood, since I tried the chili powder once and got negative results and none of the traps have been sprung yet (except the one I stepped on in flip flops – OUCH!). I actually get to put more than half the garden’s produce on the dinner table. I’ve never been happier in my life. While this may not work for you, I would definitely recommend giving it a try.