Organic Ways to Keep Squirrels and Pests Out

Squirrels are such cute little creatures, and so much fun to play with and feed while we are in a park. They can really wreck havoc on a garden though, and so can a lot of other cute little critters.

If you are having a problem in your vegetable or flower garden with squirrels, or other cute little critters; these tips can really help you to keep them out. And the really nice thing about these tips is, they won't harm the animals.

1. Turn your dog out in the yard and garden. We have a Rat Terrier by the name of Buster. Dogs are very territorial by nature, and though they love to share their yard with their family, they do not want to share it with any other animals. It can be a bit of a problem to keep the dog out of the garden, but they usually won't stay in it other than to chase other animals out, because it's dirty in there.

2. Plant garlic - most all outside creatures are repelled by garlic. I have garlic planted on all four corners of my garden. Not only does it help to keep the squirrels out, but rabbits and deer as well.

3. Strips of aluminum foil glued to the end of stakes. This is a trick we learned from a neighbor several years ago. Our neighbor had glued strips of aluminum foil to the ends of narrow stakes, and placed them intermittently throughout the garden. When I asked him about it, he said that the wind will cause to foil to send a glare, and will also make noise. This will keep the birds out of the garden, and will protect the young seedlings coming up. After seeing how well it works at keeping the birds out; I really feel that it helps to keep other critters out as well. At the end of the garden season, I pull the stakes up; carefully roll the foil up on the ends of the stakes, and reuse them the next year.

4. Make a scarecrow - I know that it must seem like over-kill to go to so much work to keep the critters out of the garden, but we go to a lot of work putting in our garden. It is our food for the upcoming year, and I don't take too kindly having the squirrels and other animals getting in and ruining it.

I take some old clothes that would otherwise go into the rag bin, and put them in the dirty clothes hamper for about a week to really get the human scent into the clothes. I then stuff them with whatever I have old and laying around, and put them on both ends of the garden.

5. I get hair clippings from the barber shop where my husband gets his hair cut. The barber knows when it is getting time to put in the garden, because I show up with a small trash bin that has a lid. I also give him a supply of trash bags. He has to sweep up the hair anyway; he just puts it in my trash bin, and not his. He doesn't mind as it is no extra work for him. He says that he is glad to do his part to make sure we have a critter free garden. You will be surprised at how well this works. The deer won't even come near the garden anymore.

6. Crushed egg shells help to keep slugs out of the garden. A few weeks before we put our garden in, we start collecting egg shells we crush them up and spread them around the perimeter of the garden. This is something that my dad always did, and the slugs will not cross the broken egg shells.

I love to have animals and wildlife come to our yard, and I would never put out poison or chemicals that would harm the balance of nature. If I had to I would get animal feed and put out feeders to feed them. But these tips keep the animals out of our garden so that each year we can have a bountiful harvest.