How to Keep Squirrels Out of the Garden (Proven Methods)

Squirrels are driving me nuts! They are digging up the ground in my raised garden beds, eating my seeds, disturbing my garlic, and making a total mess of the garden.

Squirrels love to eat seeds and ripening fruit like tomatoes and berries, so gardens tend to be a squirrel’s paradise. How can gardeners protect their vegetable and flower gardens from these lively critters?

In this post, I share how to identify squirrel activity, natural methods for how to keep squirrels out of the garden, and 3 simple squirrel deterrents.

Protecting Your Investment

Gardening is an investment of time, money, and labor while looking forward to a significant return of fresh produce, health benefits, and beauty to enjoy. If you’re like me, you want to be proactive about protecting that investment.

It doesn’t take long for animal pests to cause a lot of damage to a garden! Depending on your local wildlife, you may need to know effective strategies for deer management, how to rabbit-proof a garden, tips to prevent bird damage, or other pest deterrent tricks.

Why Squirrels Are Attracted to Your Garden

Squirrels can cause trouble for gardeners almost any time of the year. They eat seeds, fruits, nuts, vegetables, and flowers, and they bury things like acorns and walnuts to save for later to maintain a food cache throughout the winter.

Squirrels are most active in the late summer and fall when they are stocking up their winter food supply. Last fall, squirrels dug about 15 holes in a raised bed within a week of me planting garlic there.

Now, the squirrels were not eating the garlic. Instead, they were burying things in the nice loose soil. My raised bed was essentially becoming the squirrel’s pantry.

It is annoying to have my nice rows ruined by a squirrel who is making my raised bed look like the moon's surface. It was time to put a stop to these pests before they destroyed my garden.

Signs of Squirrel or Chipmunk Activity in Your Garden

Watch for these signs of squirrel activity to keep your garden safe:

• Sightings - Squirrels are usually active during the mornings and evenings, so you will likely see them in your garden.

• Holes - Their holes are shallow and small. They especially like to dig and bury things in soft, loose soil.

• Unearthed Seed Beds - Squirrels are strongly attracted to freshly planted seedbeds. They enjoy digging up and eating the seeds.

• Dug-up Bulbs - Squirrels, chipmunks, and groundhogs are the common culprits of eating spring bulbs and flowers.

• Damaged Plants - Watch for chewed-on fruits and vegetables.

• Bird Feeders - Squirrels like to raid bird feeders and pet food for an easy meal. If you have a bird feeder in or near your garden, the food will probably start disappearing quickly or piling up on the ground underneath.

• Droppings - Look for small, pellet-like squirrel droppings in and around your garden.

If your garden has become a mecca for squirrels, it’s time to take steps to stop them.

Natural Methods For Keeping Squirrels Away From the Garden

These are common methods for repelling pesky squirrels, not killing them. Plenty of humane ways exist to keep pest animals out of the garden.

How to Keep Squirrels Out of the Garden

I can safely say that the repellants I am about to share really work to make your garden less welcoming to squirrels! Our yard has a large squirrel population, and we have successfully used these techniques to greatly reduce the damage they cause in the garden.

Chicken Wire or Hardware Cloth

If squirrels are taking advantage of soft, loose garden soil to bury their cache but they aren’t actually eating anything from the garden, then I would use chicken wire or hardware cloth to deter them.

Chicken wire is not meant to be a permanent, long-term solution, but it buys the gardener some time. It keeps the squirrels out while allowing the seedlings to grow up. Water and sunlight continue to penetrate through, so it won’t suffocate or ruin anything in your garden.

To use this method, simply roll the chicken wire or hardware cloth over the top of the raised bed and secure it down. (If you do not have raised beds, row covers can work the same way for an in-ground garden.)

When the conditions have changed (the squirrels have moved on, or the seeds have all sprouted and grown into plants) you can remove the chicken wire, and you are good to go.

Pro-Tip: It is a good idea to keep nuts cleaned up off the ground if you have nut trees, especially in the fall. Nuts are usually what the squirrels are burying in your garden. Keeping nuts picked up will greatly reduce the problem of squirrels digging in your garden.

Bird Netting or Squirrel Netting

I want to caution you about using bird netting or squirrel netting. It is often used as a barrier to drape around plants and trees, or in the same way that I described using the chicken wire.

While it usually deters squirrels by creating a barrier they can’t get through, many birds get tangled in it and die. Bird/squirrel netting is so lightweight and wispy that birds easily get their wings or feet caught in it.

That is really sad! Birds can be super beneficial to the garden, so we don’t want to inadvertently kill them. That is why I would not personally recommend using bird netting.

Cayenne Pepper or Chili Pepper (Capsaicin)

I recommend using cayenne powder when sowing seeds that are a potential food source, like pumpkin seeds, corn seeds, or any other seed that squirrels like to eat. I have used this method for years. Squirrels are a huge consumer of corn seed, and this is a very reliable method of keeping them away!

Cayenne powder works to deter squirrels because it contains capsaicin. Capsaicin is the component in hot peppers that makes them spicy and gives us that burning sensation.

Capsaicin affects only mammals, so it can be used as a deterrent for deer, squirrels, chipmunks, mice, raccoons, groundhogs, skunks, or other mammals. It does not affect birds.

The capsaicin will prevent mammals from eating the seeds because the burning sensation is very undesirable. Once an animal tries to dig up those seeds and consume them, it won’t find them appealing and will leave them alone.

Use this method to protect seeds you are directly sowing in the garden. Simply take a shaker bottle of cayenne pepper and sprinkle it overtop the seeds you are sowing in the ground.

Pro-Tip: Some birdseed manufacturers are adding cayenne pepper into their birdseed mix to prevent unwanted animals like raccoons, squirrels, deer, and mice from eating the birdseed and disturbing bird feeders. It doesn’t affect the birds. You can do the same at home by mixing cayenne pepper into your birdseed.

Peppermint Oil

Peppermint oil is organic and safe and it can be used for so many beneficial things! I absolutely love it. We use it in a spray bottle to prevent squash vine borers and on cotton balls to repel mice and squirrels in the garden.

You will need a bottle of peppermint oil and some cotton balls to use this method.

1. Soak a Cotton Ball - Hold one cotton ball against the top of an open bottle of peppermint oil and shake it to saturate the cotton ball with peppermint oil.

2. Place the Saturated Cotton Ball in the Garden - Place the saturated cotton ball in the garden, preferably under a plant with large leaves like horseradish. The leaves will keep rain off of it and reduce how often you need to reapply the peppermint oil.

3. Repeat - Repeat steps 1 and 2, placing cotton balls every so often around the garden perimeter to create a “moat” of scent around your garden.

My grandparents successfully used this technique in their garden, and we still use it today. Protecting your garden from pests is a job that never stops, but now you know how to keep squirrels out of the garden so you can grow bigger!