Raccoons usually come out at night and like to dig, eat, and basically mess up your plants. If animal damage has made you mad as a gardener, you’re not the only one. Check out this piece for some good tips on how to keep raccoons out of your garden.
How to Understand Raccoon Behaviour:
Before we talk about ways to keep you safe, it’s important to know how raccoons act. Raccoons eat anything they can get their teeth on, and they often eat plants like fruits, veggies, and nuts. They are also very good at digging, which means your garden beds can become a great target.
Signs that raccoons have been in your garden:
The following things should help you figure out if raccoons have been coming to your garden:
- Upturned Soil: Raccoons are known to dig up the ground to find grubs, bugs, or even plant roots. These holes may be a clear sign that they are there.
- Raccoons don’t have any food preferences. If you see plants with pieces missing or food that’s only partly eaten, that’s probably their job.
- Raccoons are mostly active at night, so if you see them foraging in your yard at night, it’s a sure sign that they got in.
Protecting Your Garden: Ways to Keep Raccoons Away:
- Putting up a strong fence around your yard is one of the best ways to keep people away. To keep raccoons from climbing your fence, choose electric fencing or a fence with a smooth surface that they can’t get over.
- Motion-activated lights: Raccoons like it dark where they can hide. Lights that turn on when they sense movement can scare them and make them run away.
- Scare tactics: raccoons might not want to be in your yard if you have things there that move or make noise, like wind chimes, pinwheels, or even a radio playing low-volume talk shows.
- Repellents: You can keep raccoons away with store-bought or home-made repellents. Sprays of garlic or hot pepper are natural choices. After it rains or when you water, make sure to repeat.
- Companion planting: Some plants give off smells that rats don’t like. To keep people away from your garden naturally, put marigolds, garlic, or alliums around it.
- Keep trash safe: Raccoons often come to gardens to find food. To keep them from coming onto your land, make sure your trash cans are locked and hard to get to.
- Get Rid of Things That Attract Them: Don’t leave old fruit or veggies in your garden for raccoons to eat. Keep your yard free of things that could be food.
In conclusion, Several proactive steps are needed to keep raccoons out of your yard. By learning about how raccoons act and using these methods to keep them away, you can keep your garden safe from these hidden thieves. Raccoons are smart animals, but if you take the right steps, you can keep your garden raccoon-free and full of food year after year. Have fun planting!
At Raccoon Control Barrie, we love helping out the communities we are a part of. We are local technicians who want to make a difference in people’s lives by doing what we do and know best. Our line of work is risky, yet rewarding after seeing clear results and seeing smiles return on people’s faces. We believe in the safe and ethical treatment of all raccoons and make sure that their well-being is never compromised during or after the raccoon removal process. Raccoons are very unpredictable animals that can act very friendly or very aggressive.