Don't get me started on Tomatoes and Groundhogs!! I swear they wait until just turning red and it is then that they probably swing/check them daily with their little paws to determine when taste is optimal. As soon as they ripe, gone they are. I gave up!

We once had a Bearded Collie who checked the tomatoes daily and then ate what would have been my lunch. The next year I had to move the tomatoes to a safe spot. Squirrels never bothered them.

I've had success with doubling up the net on this garlic bed.




In computer security we refer to "defense in depth" meaning you have antivirus, a firewall, a jerk like me to watch all that happen, some rules to protect stuff, etc. No one component is capable of eliminating a threat, but by layering controls we can achieve a reasonable level of security. I feel like that's pretty similar to the solutions that have been mentioned in this thread. It feels like you need a couple of tools available to provide you with plenty of options. Then after the vermin do their deed, at least you'll have a funny story about how you trained a family of squirrels into a flying trapeze act.

Wayne, what are you protecting your garlic from?

not Vampires?

I can't use that type of netting anywhere in my garden. It traps and kills the black snakes, as they poke their small heads in, then can't get their fat bodies through the hole. Not that I love snakes, but I do like having them around to keep the rodent population in check. Pretty sure they eat squirrel babies when they can get to them, speaking of squirrel deterrents.

I've seen black snakes 'way up in my big oak trees at times. Of course they also raid bird nests up there, I guess. It's up to the birds to build where the snakes can't go.

Humm, I don't think we have those kind of snakes here. At least I have never seen any.

DH has rescued baby Oppossums, birds and other critters from netting like that. Did I mention that our backyard is a zoo?

Southern black racer is the proper name, Ken. Articles I looked at say they are 'common throughout the Southeast', and as far north as NC but maybe it's too cold in winter where you are for them to survive. They even hibernate here in winter, but further south they're active all year.

They hide in shrubbery, and dead leaves and are very fast, so you might have them but just haven't seen them.

I can just imagine my climbing up on the ladder to get to my orchids, and a black racer/runner peers at me from his perch on the shelf. I am not particularly afraid of snakes but I think I might have a heart attack, right then and there!

We had them down on the coast and called them black runners. They might be here but I really haven't even seen a snake in the yard for years.

I put netting around some of my daylilies, and sure enough I found a dead black snake trapped in it. I guess there body design really is not compatible with the netting.

For squirrels, up on the slope, I put down chicken wire and pegged it tightly because they kept digging up my bulbs. I haven't found any critters under the wire.

Smiles,
Lyn

@drdawg this is my third attempt at protecting this bed. I would say I am attempting to keep both the birds and the squirrels out, because in my little spot they tend to follow each other. one layer of plastic netting was not sufficient to hold the weight of whatever bird pecks through the holes, and my first attempt at doubling up was really just embarrassing. I attempted to stagger the layers, and I also tried to staple the layers down with some "play" in order to allow a smaller animal a chance to survive.

@dyzzypyxxy My mother had to pull all of her netting down a couple of years ago after some snakes got trapped. I have never seen a black racer or garter snake in my neighborhood...but I am smack in the middle of Memphis. I'm sure I wouldn't be able to pull this off anywhere else either.

Speaking of snakes, the only species I have observed on my little piece of dirt is the brown earthsnake. I wasn't familiar with the species until I found one under a planter last winter. I'm am no snake fan but this is a beautiful little creature and I was pretty proud to have something unique visit my yard.

http://www.tnwatchablewildlife...

I guess the reason I asked, Wayne, was because I grow a lot of garlic, approximately 300 bulbs each year and I have never had anything bother the garlic. Squirrels will dig all over the yard and landscape, looking for grubs, acorns, and probably iris/lily bulbs. Deer simply love my sweet potato leaves/vines in the summer, rabbits have a feast on my lettuce and radish tops, and birds love to peck at my almost ripe tomatoes, just enough make them unsightly and sometime uneatable. We live 125 miles from each other and our growing conditions, at least climate, is almost identical. All my major "crops" are grown in a raised bed. I do have to protect everything mentioned, and I use heavy mesh and wire strands (deer don't like to cross over or under those wire strands) during the summer months. I have never used anything at all to cover my garlic though. Here are a few pictures of what my garlic will look like in the fall (lots haven't even come up yet) and then in the early spring. You'll see how I box everything in. These 4'x8' boxes, constructed of 1"x6" treated lumber, gives me more planting depth and isolates my varieties, one from the other. The pictures were taken 2 years ago, and I have added a few more of these boxes since then.

Does anyone have unique squirrels? We have a black squirrel here.

Seems like you have a subgroup of the Eastern gray squirrel - I was curious and googled it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Where I grew up we had red squirrels and black ones, but they are mostly grey there now, too. Funny how the advance of civilization has made animals adapt!

Black, gray, and red (what's called "fox squirrels"). I have seen them all and we have them all here in Mississippi. In our neighborhood there is a sub-variety, and they are sometimes all gray, sometimes all fox, and sometimes a mix. They all have white faces. Quite beautiful squirrels, if a squirrel can be called beautiful........

Keith, at the local golf course where my husband plays (me too, occasionally -- but hard to waste the nice weather on golf when there's gardening to be done! ) there are squirrels of just about every color variant, from solid jet black to albino, golden colored, what I call "palomino squirrels" that have a golden body with a very light cream-colored tail, the "regular" gray squirrels and fox squirrels and smaller red squirrels. Wish I had some photos of them to post, they really are pretty cool looking (even when they run off with a golf ball now and then...).

In our own yard we mostly see the smaller red squirrels, occasionally a gray or black or fox squirrel.

Wayne, I was surprised that the squirrels bother your garlic, too... it's the one thing in my garden that nothing ever seems to go after.