On the bright side, none of the clothespins had been tampered with. The problem was that I had run out of foraged-from-the yard clothespins and figured I could just tuck the back in against the wall. I’m laughing at myself now as I write this. It’s as if I am new to this here gardening thing and didn’t just spend well over a decade trying to thwart the efforts of squirrels.
Tucking it in against the wall… PLEASE with that lazy, naive ridiculousness.
Lesson learned. Again. I’m now employing buffalo clips to hold down the remaining sides. Take THAT squirrels! I’m an adult human with opposable thumbs and even I have a difficult time operating buffalo clips. I’d like to see them work their way around that business.
In related (and really only interesting to me) news, I have finally unearthed my long lost stash of lettuce seeds that had been buried deep in the dusty loins of our basement since the move. Just in the nick of time! While I had begun to accumulate a new stash of seeds, I was overjoyed to find the original collection. I just counted, and there are over 60 varieties of lettuce and greens plus an additional four varieties of spinach in there. That was not a collection that I could afford to lose.
In celebration, I’ll send a pack of three of my favourite lettuces: ‘Four Seasons’, ‘Australian Yellow Leaf’, and ‘Mascara’ to the first person who comments. Yay lettuce!
I once read about squirells: “You may be smarter, but they have more time”. Sounds like it’s true in this case.
That is so very true. Do you want the seeds?
If HazelJ doesn’t want seeds, “Yay lettuce!”
Squirrels up North are more tenacious down than down here. I think it’s too hot, and it makes them lazy!
I was afraid this might be the outcome! I hope they can’t get your new clips open, but after seeing what they’ve done in our yard, I’m not too confident!
I like HazelJ’s comment about the squirrels. Funny!
What you need is a 3 legged squirrel catching cat. I have one and he is VERY effective. His secret? He lounges around like that missing leg is a disability and then in the blink of an eye he is up on his 3 legs and racing across the lawn up the fence and grabbing those squirrels by the neck. I think the squirrel are so shocked they never know what t them.
LOL! Great little bit of humor to start off my morning. Also – the squirrels in Texas really are lazier – go figure :)
This really made me laugh! Have to admit, I did wonder when I saw how few clothespins you used in your earlier post.
I had this idea I could use old curtain sheers to shade my house plants when I put them out last spring. I too used a few clothespins. What a tangled mess those squirrels made of my cunning plan.
okay. i give. what’s a buffalo clip?
Sherry: Oops. Sorry. Binder clips.
yay lettuce?!!!
Funny … I just googled “buffalo clips” thinking maybe I was missing out on some new-fangled contraption that would guarantee me success in my battle with the backyard squirrels! Binder clips sound like they might work. BTW – searching “buffalo clips” turns up a whole bunch of money clips with buffalo nickels on them.
This looks awful familiar! While I’ve been reading up on beautiful gardens all winter, I can just picture the squirrels reading their own little “DIY” books down in the burrows.
Damn squirrels.
We’ve named our yard squirrel. I’ll shorten it for the sake of any children reading this to “B-Squirrel”. He has a family. He leads a very fullfilling life gorging himself on my bulbs, my strawberries and anything else I happen to put in my yard. And that’s with 3 cats roaming the yard. Though, they’re only allowed out at certain times and then he sits in the trees and yells at them to go back inside. It sounds a lot like “chit chit chit chit”.
I noticed that you stretched the netting tightly over your container. I’ve tried that in the past and the squirrels still managed to rip or chew their way through. What I’ve discovered works best is to use light weight netting, bunch it up into a tangled mess, place it over the container (even more than one container) and weight done the edges. The squirrels don’t like to get their paws caught in the tangled netting.
Diane: Good strategy. Stretching it has worked so far. They’ve lost interest in the box since I fixed it.
Stephanie: I laughed out loud when I read that.
Jessica: Yes.
April: Not sure where I learned to call them buffalo clips, but that’s what I’ve always called them. Perhaps a regional thing?
Don’t take this the wrong way – I can’t help but laugh. We have horrible problems with possums here in Australia, and this brings back a lot of memories. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING worked on the lil’ buggers! Good luck!
I’ve taken the tactic of giving the squirrels their own feeder, right next to the bird feeder. The easy pickings of the squirrel feeder keep the squirrels out of the garden beds and pots. The chipmunks, however, love my garden beds and pots, so I frequently have little stands of millet sprouting in my beds and pots, from where the chippy’s have buried bird seeds in “scatter hordes” all over the garden! Oh well – the millet stands look a lot like ornamental grasses, and the birds help keep the noxious bug pop down, so I’ll keep feeding the wildlife so that they leave the plants that feed me alone (most of the time). :-)
I have lost many a battle with the cunning squirrel. My favorite was the bird feeder, they would pop open the top and spill seeds all over my deck. Though I was smart by moving it to the location less easy for them to climb in. Their solution chew the rope connecting the bird feeder to the branch. Few repairs from the fall I got really smart and use a coat hanger instead of the rope. They then chewed the top off the birdfeeder until it fell again. I gave up at the point, I knew I could not compete with their superior intellect.
My dad uses chicken coop wire over the tulip beds he built with landscape timbers. The wire is stretched over the soil after the bulbs are planted. Then a perimeter of timbers is laid around the top edge of the flower bed. The squirrels haven’t gotten in but his tulips are able to get out. It works great.
I like to save little pieces of rose prunings with thorns, and scatter them over whatever is getting dug up. Working so far! *fingers crossed*
I have a collection of old plastic wire freezer baskets, and bird cages picked up at garage sales — many in a free pile . My garden
looks rather strange for awhile in early spring, because I plop them down over all the tulips that are coming up. This keeps the rabbits and squirrels away until they are big enough that the varmits are not interested. I have an old wire cage over my small planting of blue pearl crocus. They leave the daffodils alone. The bulbs are poisonous.