Freakin' Bunnies, Part 2: Freakin' Squirrels

When I wrote about the garden before, I mentioned that we had some issues with rabbits eating our fledgling plants. Well, once our tomatoes plants began to bear ripening fruit, they came back with a vengeance. After going out to the garden for the second time only to find a beautifully red tomato with a huge bite out of it hanging on the vine, we could stand no more. So off to Lowe's we went to purchase a rabbit fence.

It was very easy to install, just driving the posts into the ground and then hanging the wire on the little clips on the post, making sure to get it super close to the ground. You don't want any sneaky rabbit getting underneath.

We were very pleased with out efforts, until  a few days later, when I found this.

 

TWO chewed upon tomatoes! As days passed, we found more and more tomatoes strewn about the yard, until we had almost none left on the plants. It was at this point we realized that our problem was now squirrels. Squirrels who can easily climb over our 30" tall rabbit fence. David did some googling for suggestions on keeping them away. He learned that squirrels, in fact, don't even like tomatoes. Which is why we kept finding fruit discarded with only one bite taken out. It was suggested that if a tastier alternative is offered, the squirrels will leave your plants alone.

So we now have a squirrel/bird feeder. We went with a platform type because it seemed like it would be the easiest for the squirrels to get to.

We fill it with sunflower seeds, because apparently squirrels like them. In fact, as I type this, I can see one eating out of the feeder. Along with birds below, eating what he drops, and a rabbit munching on grass nearby. It's like a paradise for woodland creatures.

So far, our tomatoes have been left alone since we hung the feeder. They are still quite small at this point, so hopefully the seeds are enough to keep our squirrels happy even as the tomatoes ripen. If not, spraying cayenne on the plants will be our next tactic.

In other news, our garage has been looking like this. David and I vowed to tackle it this weekend, and we so got on that.

It's so wonderful to be able to walk directly to the item you need without searching, or tripping over random stuff in the floor.

We finally got our bikes mounted on the wall.

And for the first time ever, the scrap wood pile got organized.

Does anyone have any additional tips on keeping unwanted animals out of your garden? What about keeping your garage tidy, because it seems like about every 6 months, it ends up looking like a disaster zone again.