I’m a birder and we feed the birds and noticed in one of the bird seed stores that they offer a seed cylinder with hot chili flavor. I thought it was some kind of NM chili gimmick but they told me at the store that squirrels do not like hot chili but birds can’t taste heat so I bought it and it’s true! What does this have to do with vegetable gardening?
I noticed last year in my main garden, that mice came and ate holes in my sweet peppers but NOT the hot peppers I grew, so this year I will make a hot pepper solution and spray the sweet peppers with it in hopes the mice or rats will leave them alone. Maybe hot pepper solution will keep the critters off other crops as well. I have read about making hot chili spray before so this is not my idea but have never tried it and through the power of observation last year, thought I should.
I haven’t confirmed this spray yet, but am currently trying pepper solution inside my greenhouse on the lettuce. I sprayed it as I noticed something nibbled on the lettuces after we planted them. I want to see if it keeps rodents away. So far it seems to be working. I only hope the spray washes off and we can eat the lettuce when ready!
PEPPER SPRAY RECIPE
CAUTION_WEAR A MASK/GLOVES-so you don’t inhale the peppers and wash hands when done. I made a solution by buying 2 Habanero and 4 Serrano peppers and ground them in some water in my blender. I think any hot peppers will work. Then I poured them in about a gallon of water and heated it up to infuse the water. Later, I let it cooled and strained it through a fine mesh strainer that I also lined with butter muslin so only the liquid came through. I put it in a hand sprayer to use and added a couple of drops of dish soap to make it adhere to the plants more. Hope it works on all kind of veggies the mice like! I will update you how this ‘tip’ works or not in the long run.
giantveggiegardener 
Oh yes! Can’t hardly wait for the update! I’ve avoided feeding the birds because of squirrels, mice, and rats. This could be very cool.
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An excellent course of action, and with many of us having a HUGE surplus of dried ristra chiles gathering dust, it’s an appropriate onward use. If you add a drop or two of liquid dishwash detergent per gallon, it will aid with sticking to leaves and stems. And if you have access to tobacco, add it to the ‘tea’ which will help in killing the insect critters, not simply deterring them. Otherwise, birds have long been great disseminators of even the hottest chile seeds, as they’re immune to the capsaicin for whatever reason …
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OMG I hope this works! Currently fighting mice eating my potted decorative plants on my porch.
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Hi Julie-I got mixed results with the pepper spray. In my green house, the spray did deter mice from eating my lettuce. But when I put a big transplant of cabbage that I sprayed outside in a garden trough, a rat ate part of it one night and came back the next night to finish it off. I even had it covered with some 30% shade cloth and it ate a hole in it to get through. I know it wasn’t squirrels becuse this damage happened at nite and mice/rats are active at nite but squirrels are active in day. So I will continue to use it and see how it goes. Can’t hurt to try!
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I tried mixing some “Squirrel repellent (habanero oil) (that I have used for keeping squirrels out of birdseed) mixed with water and spayed these on the plants, applied every one to two days and it worked….for about a week, then no more plants. Guess my mice like the spicy stuff!
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I had a beautiful red cone shaped cabbage called Kalibos and it was in a trough bed up at the house not in the main vegetable garden. We have squirrels up at the house but it got half eaten at night so it had to be a rat since squirrels are only active in the day. I even put shade netting over the bed and secured it with ‘u’ hooks every 3 inches so nothing could get under it. Well whatever it was just chewed thru the shade netting and finished it off the next night. Tough year!
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