Repelling animals from gardens
 

So I built some raised beds this fall to plant winter stuff like garlic and onions. Since I built them, I have seen disturbances to the surface of the soil when I go out in the morning. Not digging exactly, but places where you can definitely tell something has been there.

I have a cat that goes outside, so it is possibly him, but there was no feces, so IDK. Since nothing is actually digging up any of the garlic or onions or anything, my main concern is that something is urinating in the beds, and the excess nitrogen might be bad for the plants.

Do you guys know of any products that I could use to keep animals out of the gardens? Nothing is coming up yet. It's just bare soil. What do you guys think? I looked on amazon and found a variety of products you spray on the soil surface to repel animals. Do any of them work? Do any of you have a better method for keeping unwanted animals out of your beds? I never had this problem in Oklahoma. I guess we just have more wildlife in Texas or something, but it is a problem I have not had to deal with before, so I'm open to ideas.

Pepper. Cracked black pepper, dried crushed red pepper, cayenne pepper pepper powder

I have also heard of sticky paper as a deterrent for raccoons, cats etc. not the super sticky rat traps, this is more like honey covered parchment paper.

Something that feels uncomfortable to the feet (i.e. chestnut hulls).

I can vouch for pepper--highly effective on racoons, skunks too, if they are digging for grubs.



There is a series of products named "Shakeaway"--does anyone have any experience with this? I'm thinking of trying the cat repellent.

A motion detecting sprinkler has practically eliminated my squirrel and chipmunk problem. Btw, if you're seeing disturbances that don't look like serious digging, expect some trees to sprout in the spring. Unless they find the nuts they buried, in which case you'll see signs of real digging later this winter.

Liquid Fence or coyote urine.

there is also some success in using dead carcasses to repel the offender but you have to know what it is to properly repel them and i have heard of the carcasses attracting OTHER nuisance critters

Well as if I didn't have enough to do, now I have to go out looking for dead carcasses...

We set up a security camera to watch my plants. In years past, I have had plants eaten or knocked over by critters so now we can see the culprit and plan accordingly.

It's more satisfying to make your own than to go out looking for them.

When I was in grad school, I had a married friend lived about 30 miles south of Atlanta on a small farm. His wife worked at Six Flags, and she brought home some feces from the tigers and spread it around their garden.

No critter would DARE to go near it.

Possibly more difficult to come by than carcasses...

I knew someone who kept big cats. If you want to see something funny, check out the expression on a person's face when the horse they're mounted on gets a whiff of lion urine........

Yeah, but we went through this whole thing before, and I accidentally started a huge controversy when I told what I thought was just a funny story about trying to doing the right thing and having it come back and bit me in the ass (There was a nuisance skunk that used to hang out in my back yard and under the crawl space in my house, so one night when I saw him in the yard, I shot him. Then when the police came around saying they had reports of shots fired, and did I know anything about that, I could have just said, "Geel, officer, I heard a noise, I'm not sure if it was a gun or not, I just don't know", but instead I said, "Yes, I shot a skunk that keeps spraying my dog in the backyard," and then he wrote me a 200 dollar ticket for discharging a firearm in a residential area.)

Modern air rifles are very powerful, and much quieter than a firearm. And at least at the federal level they're not defined as a firearm, and not subject to restrictions placed on firearms. That does vary from state to state.

Well this is Texas hahahahaha

Surprisingly TX regulates air rifles as firearms in certain circumstances, but there's no law against firing one on your own property as long as you don't damage someone else's property.
Texas Laws About Shooting a BB Gun | Legal Beagle

Get an air pistol.

I have the Benjamin trail something or other. 540 FPS and it shoots straight.

I’m good to 10yard and that’s shooting a lizard’s head about the size of a nickel.