blasted squirrels

[aquilegia]

little b****rs keep digging up and eating my bulbs. Any way to stop them?

Would they stop eating them if I put out other food? Or would they just get fatter?

I put a mulch of slate shale over the top of the soil in pots, but they still dig through it and I don't want to make it more than an inch thick in case the plant has trouble coming through.

And rather amusingly they keep burying things in the pots - I find lots of peanuts, no surprise there, but yesterday I found a sausage-sized mini-baguette thing (at least I think that's what it was!)

[Ragged Robin]

        hi, Aquilega
I too am plagued by suirrels , for bulbs in pots; I found putting chicken wire on top, just under the soil surface to be effective as it hurts the little darlings paws when they dig .......heeheee!

Watched them climb last years sunflowers, chew through the stem and then take the heads to eat as a picnic elsewhere!! Even worse the cats sat there and watched them, I'm sure they were shouting encouragement!!

Otherwise tend to live with them, putting easily accessible food for them does help a bit.

[wetandcold]

My cat certainly keeps our squirrels at bay. He even jumped out of a 2nd storey window into the tree to get the things!

Maybe you need a better cat...

[budgiebreeder]

Living next to a wood i am inundated with the varmints.Shooting them seems to be the only solution.They can be eaten roasted.Think that we have covered this before.

Watch your cats though a squirrel bit one of mine once and it cost an arm and a leg in vets bills.

[Mimi]

Im in the same predicament BB.  Other half bought shot gun last year and swears if he sees more than 4 in the garden at a time he is going to start  'thining them out'a bit.  Youngest has nicknamed him El Gringo.  He sits in the greenhouse,  shotgun on his knee and smokes a ceeegar.  All that is missing is a sombrerro and the music to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly playing in the background.  A sight to behold. topped feeding birds and the squirrels went to easier pickings.  Started feeding the birds and the little beauties are back again.  At least they have kept their paws off my bulbs.

[Tenuse]

According to Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, squirrels are good barbequed on a stick.

Ten x

(They're just rats with good PR after all...)

[ciaozzy]

Yo peeps

when I lived in the stalag aka Bournemouth  sorry bomo peeps am sure you are not all the rabid right winging cretinous peeps who I encountered.. where am I?

yeah squirrel loads of them in derby road and knyveton road, in fact Bomo full of squirrels and I swear that the used to chuck acorns at us from dead high up..

also ued to watch cats from me flat window, trying to catch a squirell.... not a chance .. squirrels are nifty lil bugg*rs

Dont mind the red (celtic) sqizzers cuz they are dead nice
and so much prettier than mongerel yanky greys...

so thats smokers, peeps from bomo (bournemouth) and now the yanks.. that I may be upsetting.

any americans living in Bournemouth who smoke... sorry dont take it personally

Oz

xxx