Are you tired of critters grazing across your fruits and vegetables before you get a chance to relish your hard work around the garden? It is not uncommon for critters to chew your plans and fruits from the garden and it is not possible to completely get rid of them making your garden critter-free, but you can follow certain tips shared below to minimize the damage caused by these critters to your garden;
Identify the Type of Critter:
The first step is to identify the type of critter which is damaging your garden before you can decide upon the type of fencing you need. Most common critters which may be damaging your garden are deer, rabbits, opossums, rodents, and groundhogs. If you are unable to identify the critter, you can call an expert who may be able to identify the critter by their soil track, droppings or the snips they take on your plant.
Fence the Garden:
Once you have identified the culprit, you need to make a fool-proof plan of keeping it out of your garden by carefully fencing the garden. There are various types of critter fence available in the market to keep any type of critter out of your garden. A fence which is a few feet tall will be appropriate for rabbits and a fence 4 to 8 feet tall will be perfect to keepdeers out of your garden. For groundhogs which may burrow under the fence, a fence that buries at least 10" deep below the ground needs to be put up. You may also need to protect your small bushes from birds by placing a plastic net over them especially to protect fruits. We suggest you not to wait till the critters attack your garden to fence it. Talk to neighbors and understand the critters that usually attack gardens in your neighborhood and get your garden fenced against those critters beforehand.
Shield new plants.
Plants that have fully grown have their own defense mechanism and can survive a critter attack, but new plants do not stand a chance. Plants newly purchased from a nursery and planted are more nutritious and hence critters are drawn to eat those naturally. Apart from fencing the whole garden, these new plants need extra protection hence you should use trunk wraps or individual fence for these new plants once they are planted.
Choose Types of Plants Carefully:
Talk to an expert from a local nursery to know more about the critters in your area and the kind of plants which have better chances of surviving in your area. There are certain plants which critters love to graze on whereas few other plants which they are not interested in. Obviously, you cannot plan an entire garden based on the plants the critters don't attack much but you definitely can plan a garden with a mix of plants which you really want to grow and plant the plants less appealing to critters around them.
Try Repellents:
The last resort would be to try repellents, but you need to find the right repellent for the critters affecting your garden. Odor repellents can smell bad to the animals and make them stay away. You can also spray taste repellent causing the critter to repel the flavor and in turn protecting the plant from grazing. If you do not want to hurt these animals, don't worry, these repellents only upset the animal's tummy training them to stay away from your garden and does not cause them any harm.
As a gardener, you need to be aware of all factors and get an overall perspective. All years cannot be good, there are a number of factors which may affect your garden including the weather and critters. If you get to enjoy the vegetables from your garden, consider it to be a good year and even if you did a favor to the local wildlife by letting them chew your plants (obviously you did not plan for this to happen but as we have mentioned already, it is quite difficult to make your garden critter-free), cheer up, there is always next year!
