For over 10 years, I didn’t have any squirrel problem because of my cats. Now the squirrel has finally caught up with me!
They got most of my almost ripe peaches from one tree, and every single plum that has turn somewhat red.
I still has a lot of green plum left on the tree, what can I do to protect them from the squirrel? Does bagging help? Or spraying surround to mask the color ?
What else can I do? I don’t want to kill them, just want to save some fruits for myself. I am thinking of getting a trap, but don’t want to trap my cats. If I set up a feeder, would that distract them to leave my fruit alone or it will just attract more squirrels?
Sarah,
At least, in my experience, neither Surround nor bagging deters squirrels. Squirrels can smell fruit. They don’t care how fruit look. Some of them even take a bite on green fruit.
However, chipmunks, groundhogs and raccoons also compete for your fruit. Your peaches may be consumed by all these critters.
I have 3 bird feeders that mostly feed squirrels (unintentionally). They still go for ripe fruit so having bird feeders is not an effective diversion.
I don’t know if a regular fence can deter them as they can climb. An electric fence may work better.
If you don’t want to trap or kill them, having a dog or a cat who likes to hunt is an effective approach. You may need another cat.
For us, backyard growers, I do not believe that squirrels will eat some and spare you some fruit. Those bastards will eat all your fruit if you don’t stop them.
My outlook is you either cage the trees or kill the thieves. There are way to many threads about people not getting fruit for their hard work and their hard earned money spent but most spend more money on more trees without solving the real problem, so i have to say it again. Cage the trees or kill the thieves. Or be happy with little or no fruit.
Has anyone tried spraying the tree/fruit with hot sauce? It could be washed off the fruits easily before eating. I wouldn’t do that to berries, but I always wondered if that would work. Just make sure to stand downwind and wear proper mask and goggles lol.
Thank you for all your replies! Now I am really depressed, it seems no easy way of dealing with the squirrels.
Guess I really had it good for all these years! I didn’t have problem with squirrels, chipmunks, Rabbit will eat the fruits on the ground. The only problem I had was with birds, But I just need to net the tree when the fruit start to turn color.
Now all of sudden squirrel got all the fruits. I saw the squirrel a few times coming from and going To the tree! I will set up a video camera to see if the other critters are also eating my fruit.
I might be the only one who thinks that ziploc bagged apples sprayed with a heavy mix of surround/neem/dawn helps deter squirrels. It took me awhile to realize that the night raiders were getting most of my fruit. I finally circled most of my orchard with one run of electric wire. As of now I haven’t had any raccoons or opossums damage. I did see some soil disturbed at the back side near the wire. Made me think the wire gave the intruder a good reminder to keep out. The squirrels just jump over the wire. They jump extra high when they go over.
My tube traps are excellent source for eradicating pests squirrelinator not so much, it catches a squirrel every so often but then i still have to spray the hot lead.
@Sara_in_philly, if i may ask, if you are live trapping what r u going to do with your catch?
Wow! Your squirrels figured out the smart way to steal your fruits. My electric fence have disabled a few of them. They are limping now on my neighbors’ yards. They have yet to know that they can jump in my yard. I have not seen them back just yet.
I shouldn’t laugh about the disabled squirrels but I can’t help it. You must have a strong fence charger. If the neighbors comment about them having a limp I would act surprised. I haven’t seen any squirrels inside the fence lately so they might have met the fence by now. I haven’t seen any of them limping around the yard yet but I will be on the lookout.
Yes, I think my husband said it was meant for cows or something…not sure…he wired it for me. To make sure that it is fully charged, he wired 4-5 layers of wires. The whole yard is wired…including the 2 sheds, and his very own little garden that he grows bitter melons and gourds. I was talking to my nice neighbor the other day and he said I have to give him vegetables this yr cuz he now has my animals (ground hogs, squirrels, opossums, rabbits, turkey, deer, etc…in his yard that are eating everything. I agreed to share my harvests with him. I used to have 6 Asian pears and now I have huge trees with tons of different fruiTs. Now, the pressure is on to manage the bugs and diseases. … there is always something to do…
. I though that maybe a little ghost pepper That I grow can go a long way in the future.
