Are raccoons digging up your garden?

Is this happening in your garden?

Raccoons may look cute, however it's not so cute when they dig up your garden!

Is your garden being dug up each night? Have you been wondering who the culprit is? 

Well it's the fall season and raccoons, as well as skunks and moles are on the hunt, looking for grubs and other insects in your garden especially under turf areas, before the cold nights of winter are upon us. How can you tell who is doing this damage? Raccoons are able to roll turf up like a carpet, as shown in the photo above. Skunks create whirls with their snout in order to get to the grub. Moles are tunneling close to the surface and create mounds throughout the area in the shape of a volcano. 

Unlike the skunks and the moles, the raccoons will also dig up plants in your garden, creating quite a mess. They can literally destroy your garden in one night. Has this happened to you?

The best way to manage this is to remove the food source, this means removing the grubs. This can easily be done with an application of beneficial nematodes (BN). Have you heard of these before? BN are microscopic worm like organisms that naturally live in the top inch or so of soil and feed on soil dwelling insects, such as grubs. These little critters do an amazing job of ridding your garden of many pest insects. However once the fall temperatures cool, the soil temperatures drop, and so do the grubs. They drop deeper down where they will over winter in the warmer depths of the soil, only to emerge in the early spring months when the temperatures warm. So November is typically too late to apply this. If you suspect you have grubs it will be a really good idea to apply beneficial nematodes in the early spring when the soil temps start to warm back up. I've given you a few info pages that I find to be really helpful, where to purchase these (in link above) and for more guidance for what grubs are and how to apply BN. 

So now that it's November and the timing is too late to apply the beneficial nematodes, or you know darn well you have treated your garden and have removed the grubs, yet the raccoons are still wreaking havoc, what can you do?

Create barriers:

So here's the thing, raccoons have a very good memory, if they have ever successfully found grubs in your garden the they will return to see if they are still in luck. This can be extremely frustrating if you've been quite diligent about ridding your yard of grubs, removing their food with the intention of preventing them. This is when we will want to use a barrier of sorts. Here I have a photo of poultry wire on top of the lawn. If the lawn or garden area is not so large, then laying poultry wire (or similar) on top of the lawn or garden areas is very effective at preventing them from further damage. For larger turf areas I recommend rolling out bird netting and securing with landscape pins. Bird netting, or similar, is best when it can be rolled up onto a wooden dowel or a piece of PVC irrigation pipe.  Either way the raccoons are now unable to dig in that area that is covered. After a few attempts, they will eventually learn. 

Repellents:

It's a little more challenging to repel raccoons and skunks. The only product that I am aware of on the market is a repellent by Safer Brand by the name of Critter Ridder. This had been labeled under the brand of Havahart, owned by Safer Brand and Safer recently changed the label. Anyway, the active ingredient combination of this product does seem to provide some repelling success from what people would tell me. When I worked at the nursery, it was the only repellent folks would buy saying that it really worked. You can try for yourself to see, I'd love to hear what your experience is. 

With moles, there is are great repellents on the market with castor oil as the active ingredient I know that Bonide makes one under the name of MoleMax or GopherMax, TomCat makes one labeled Gopher & Mole repellent, Sweeny's has one and so may a couple other brands. The important thing to note here is that the active that I am suggesting is castor oil and that it especially important to follow the application process listed on the label of the product. Then you will have success keeping moles, as well as gophers and voles out of the area. 

If you have any additional question about rodent management, please don't hesitate to send me an email.
Stay warm, stay safe, and I hope you enjoy a wonderful holiday🙂

Take good care,

~Suzanne