Confession : I never do it how many fauna roamed the night until I move into a planetary house with a yard that was a veritable counter for allege animals .
raccoon , opossum , skunks , even Canis latrans and foxes — all of them are common sighting in my neighborhood and a real problem for residents with comestible garden , nicely mulched landscapes , or small computerized axial tomography and dog .
As innate scavengers , they emerge after night ( or even in daylight , on the rarified occasion ) and begin their nightly hunt for solid food from trash can , back porches , garages , and garden bed .
The latter is my big kick , as I ’ll frequently rouse up to holes all over my yard — lots and lots of holes , some of them several in deep and over a understructure in diameter , the work of relentless raccoon ( or opossums or skunks ? ) in search of grubs in the scandal . It ’s one thing for them to apprehend up themulch in the paths , but quite another when they land in a garden bottom and drudge up newly sow seed or new transfer seedlings . Gah ! I feel like my heart ’s been ripped out when that pass off .
A nocturnal critter can destroy an entire garden overnight , and it ’s a losing battle I wage every time of year . Until this time of year .
To date , I ’ve tried almost every magic trick in the book to repulse raccoons : black pepper , hot pepper , Critter Ridder , marauder urine , motion - activated sprinkler , bright lights , Havahart lying in wait . These city raccoon do n’t care . I conceive they even sneer at all our manoeuvre as they throw out aside our seedlings and rake out all the mulch with their claws .
The only thing that ’s form is installing fencing around our beds , and for a while , that solve our woes . But our hodgepodge of fence was far from perfect : brusque , thin , worn out , rend apart ( yes , from raccoon ) , and barely making it to the next season .
I did n’t want to build a custom fencing , but I demand a good - quality and more authentic solution that I would n’t have to keep restore or replacing . When I found thiswire border fencefrom Gardener ’s Supply Company , I decided to give it a shaft and the party sent it over for review .
I went with the26 - column inch fence , which is high enough to discourage any animal from digging along the edges , but not so eminent that I could n’t comfortably reap from the seam . It ’s sturdy , low - upkeep , and comfortable to erect , and I especially care how it go in with the landscape . ( The OCD in me desire to Goo Gone all the sticker on the stakes , but I abandoned the theme when I realise we had over two dozen of them . Maybe that ’ll be an end - of - season task . )
So far , I ’m really digging it . ( Pun intend . ) We secured the ends with plant clips so we could easily take the fencing when demand ( for seed - sowing or transplant ) , and installed it as a circumference on our raised beds as well as around item-by-item plants that we needed to protect .
Since I ’m always look for multipurpose solutions that make life easy , I also ordered thismesh pest control pappa - upand wonder why I did n’t look for it rather . It ’s a game - changer in the garden .
Birds are our most troublesome visitors during the day , as they ’ll chow down an entire bed of lettuce seedlings after we put them out . We considered adding net , but this season , we simply put the popping - up over our layer . It took less than 60 second to “ put in . ” It lets in all the sun and rain our seedling need while protect them on all sides .
We recently moved the pop - up to a different bed to protect our brassica seedlings . It ’s leaps and leaping better than the floating row covers I ’ve used in the past to keep cabbage white butterflies ( and their voraciousgreen cat ) off our crops , and the zippered entries on both sides make it easy to get at the plants for fertilizing or harvesting .
We went with the4×8 pop - upwhich fits neatly over most of our standard set up beds , but I wish they gave a minuscule more wiggle elbow room on the dimension for hand - build up beds that may not be accurate . The dad - up cater an excess 3 inches overall , but I would ’ve liked about 6 inch of supererogatory width and distance for more versatility . Nonetheless , we ’ve used this on a few of our 4×8 bed without topic and I like the fact that it can be folded monotonic and stack away for the next use .
The pop - up did come with small metal stakes to plug it to the ground , but since we had some very heavy storms last month , we tied it off to full - tiptop bamboo interest to verify it would n’t louse up away . After a especially puffy daylight with banana leave of absence flying all over , we crack on the pop - up and it was still as good as raw . It ’s so utile that we may lend a duo more to our garden to keep the critters , caterpillars , andbirds at bay .
For off - the - shelf fencing material resolution , these are my pet right now ! Do you have any other tried and true method for controlling critters ?
Gardener ’s Supply Companyprovided the merchandise refer in this position for review , but all thoughts and intelligence are my own . Thank you for tolerate the brands that support Garden Betty .
