Rock squirrel-photo courtesy of Tadam at pl.wikipedia

July 29th-So the battle is on against the squirrels. One of my friends tried the hot pepper spray to no avail. I guess the Rocky squirrels that live here in New Mexico are use to hot peppers and like their food hot! I hear they prefer green over red chili!

Right now I’m trying 2 products from Agua Fria Nursery. The first one I tried is called Shake Away, made of fox urine granules and is for small critters-rabbits,groundhogs chipmunk, and squirrels. It is very stinky. You put  down a tablespoon every three feet like a dog marking it’s territory around the garden fence perimeter. Apply it twice a week the first week, then 0nce a week and then once every 2 weeks. It seems to be working because I haven’t seen more damage on the tips of the pumpkins that I left uncovered the past few days.  I’m not sure if I saw some damage on some big leaves that were munched or if that was from before this stuff was down. Taking notes now..

My next line of defense is Plantskydd repellant for rabbits, voles,chipmunks, other rodents and deer. This is granules of dried bovine blood-yuk. I put some of that down too. It doesn’t say whether we need to reapply any of this stuff  if it rains, but I take no chances and put both of them around some more after it rains (LOL). I got some of those party whirley birds as I called them when I was a kid that are made of shiny mylar and spin in the wind. I am also covering completely with row cover any pumpkins or giant marrows so the pesky rascals can’t eat them..

UPDATE-Here’s the update 3 weeks later-August 16th. It really seems to work. The squirrels are not trying to eat the pumpkin patch anymore. Just keep up on sprinkling it around the perimeter. In fact I think the squirrels left the property because I haven’t seen them in awhile. Perhaps they moved to my neighbors where they think the foxes don’t live!