We had such a late spring this year that I did not get anything planted in my garden until the beginning of June, and now that my veggies are starting to grow, the weather is the least of my problems. The critters have moved in and started munching the tender leaves so now the battle starts to try to keep them out of my garden.
I do believe the main culprits are rabbits, deer, and perhaps birds. I hate to use any chemicals, and I do already having fencing, which obviously isn’t working. I would like to try some more frugal and natural ways to scare them away.
I have received advice from many different sources and am ready to try as many as needed until I find something that works! Here are some of the ways I have been told I can keep the critters out of my garden:
Hot Stuff – I heard everything from making a concoction using water and hot sauce and spraying it on your plants to sprinkling cayenne pepper around the plants.
- Pro – I have some in my cupboard!
- Con – You have to buy some if you don’t already have it. May have to reapply often depending on how much it rain.
Vinegar – Really? I know vinegar has a lot of household uses, but it can scare away critters too? You are supposed to soak rags in vinegar and hang them around your garden. The scent of even the dried vinegar is supposed to work, although you should re-soak about once per week.
- Pro – I have some in my cupboard and it is inexpensive!
- Con- Might have to use a lot of rags depending on how big your garden is and having to re-soak the rags weekly (or after heavy rains I assume) could be tiring.
Coffee Grounds – I have read that coffee grounds may deter deer and rabbit so it might be worth a try since I throw away coffee grounds every day. Even if it doesn’t help with the deer and rabbits, it is good for the soil and slugs and snails will stay away from it and so will cats.
- Pro – I have plenty of used coffee grounds and they can be good for the plants
- Con- I would have to drink a lot of coffee to cover my entire garden.
Hair – You can try either human hair or dog hair. Sprinkle the hair around the plants in your garden and the scent of either will supposedly deter animals (especially deer).
- Pro – Cheap
- Con – Finding enough hair if you garden is large. I could see having to replace it often.
Scented Soap – Hang heavily scented soap around the garden. The theory behind this is that the critters will smell the soap and think it is people in the garden.
- Pro – A bar of soap would last longer than some of the other options and not have to be reapplied time after time.
- Con – It might get a little spendy depending on how many bars of soap you need. I would think you would have to at least have 4 bars (one for each side of the garden).
CDs or Aluminum Pie Tins – I read that hanging shiny CDs around the garden can help scare away deer and birds. It is the combination of light reflecting off the CDs and also the noise CDs will make if the wind blows them against a metal fence or each other.
- Pro – I have several old CDs lying around
- Con – The critters seem to come out at night so there would be no light to reflect off the CDs.
Have you ever tried any of these critter deterrents? Did it work or not? If you know of any others, please share it with us using the comments feature below.
I think I will try to cayenne pepper first mainly because I have some in my cupboard and it will be simply to go spread it around. I will report back to let you know how it works and I hope you also share your success (and non-success) stories..