How to Keep Squirrels Out of Tomato Plants

The best place to plant tomatoes is against the house, under the eaves, in a southern exposure if possible, to protect them from too much rain and give them enough heat to develop. Wherever you plant tomatoes, you will need to provide protection to keep squirrels and other animals from destroying and eating the plants. The steps below show you how to build a protective enclosure around your tomato bed.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Hammer
• Sticks or posts
• Chicken wire
• Stakes
• String
• Tin snips or wire cutter

1. Put posts or sticks into the ground, around the tomato cage or whatever you have supporting the tomatoes.
   Make sure the posts are even, placed outside the base of your tomato bed, and higher than the tomato plants.

2. Wrap the chicken wire around the posts. The chicken wire should be a little bit higher than the posts or even with the top of the posts. Use tin snips or wire cutter to cut the chicken wire to measure. Tie the sides of the chicken wire together to form an enclosure. Leave enough room so you can pick the tomatoes or prune them as necessary.

3. Push stakes into the ground over the bottom of the chicken wire. This will anchor it to the ground and keep squirrels from going under the enclosure. You can also attach the chicken wire to the sticks or poles with string, for more security.

4. Cut a piece of chicken wire to cover the top of the enclosure, leaving enough to hang over the sides. Secure the sides of the cover to the base of the enclosure with string so squirrels cannot go through the top and the wind cannot blow it away.

5. Untie the cover and lift it off or pull the stakes from the ground and lift the entire enclosure when you need to access the tomatoes.

Tips & Warnings

• You can also follow some home remedies that may prove useful in keeping squirrels away from your tomato garden. Put mothballs or used coffee grounds or ground red hot chili pepper powder around the base of your tomato plants. Do this in a double ring, one immediately around the base of the tomato bed and one about three to six inches out. You can also soak some rags in vinegar and staple them onto small wooden stakes or dowels near your plants. Resoak each rag in about a week.
• Although the use of pesticides is not suggested here, some growers turn to pesticides in frustration. The National Animal Abuse Registry provides the following warning on using pesticides: "It is not a humane solution to wildlife control. In fact it harms the non-targeted animals with fatal or debilitating results. When the dead bodies of poisoned animals are eaten by other animals, such as birds, the toxin enters the food chain where it continues a cycle of misery and death for a variety of other animals. Storm or watering runoff carry the toxins into our water supply which persist in the environment, bio-accumulate and move up the food chain."

References

• Espaliered Fruit Trees, Healthy Tomatoes and Green Manure
• NJ Tomato Garden: Protecting your plants from outside animals
• Squirrel-Proofing the Tomatoes

Resources

• Squirrels Eating Tomatoes? Keep Squirrels from Your Tomatoes
• Alternatives to the use of pesticides