Squirrels and my Garden!!

When I lived in rural WV, we struggled with gardening because the deer would eat everything before it had a chance to grow and be harvested.

I thought planting a patio garden on my porch in this little suburban area would be much safer from the "wildlife."

I was wrong.  Very wrong.

 I am so mad at these squirrels!  I caught one in the act!  So, all of this happened THE FIRST DAY that I planted my garden.  I came home from a relaxing night away with my ❤️ to find the devastation in the pictures above.  LOOK at that jalepeno plant!  BOTH plants were dug up and eaten off at the soil level.  No peppers for this girl.   My pots were knocked off the shelves and dumped all over my porch.

Those little rodents even dug up all the daffodil bulbs that I brought back from my mom's house in West Virginia AND TOOK THE BULBS WITH THEM!!!

I want to kill these squirrels - no lie.  I looked into poisons (but don't want to endanger neighborhood dogs and cats) and if I was in WV I'd just shoot them. Hah, not an option in the neighborhood.

I cleaned them up...and I noticed that the only plants not touched were the lettuce, tomato and lavender.  I've read that lavender could keep deer away, so I'm hoping it will keep squirrels away.  I picked some sprigs of lavender and rubbed it on all the cleaned up and re-potted plants.  I also put little bits of lavender in the soil.

I also read that cayenne pepper will keep the critters away so I dumped ground cayenne pepper on the top of the soil.

For three days this worked.  On the third day I caught that little gray rodent at it red (gray??) handed!!  The little thing tried to slink away like if he got really low to the ground I wouldn't see him.  GRR!  I yelled at him, but he didn't seem to care.  He knocked the strawberry pot off the top shelf again!

I put more cayenne everywhere - all over that strawberry plant and even on the pallet itself.  Hopefully that helps!


I honestly don't know what to do about this.  One variety of hosta is completely destroyed, the other two have many damaged stalks.  Peppers are all gone.   I'm not sure my herbs are all going to make it.  Daffodils are gone (all but one) and impatiens have been rooted around in so much, they might not make it either.

Anyone have any (safe) suggestions?  Help!