Anyone know of raccoon repellent?

shllnzl
shllnzl Posts: 1,816 ✭✭✭✭✭
in Pest & Weed Problems/Solutions

I'm finally going to be brave and try my two tower gardens outside (Greenstalk and Garden Tower.) I have planned a location for them that hopefully limits the destructiveness of my desert sun.

I am gearing up to fight my numerous pests. The raccoons will be the hardest to discourage and potentially the most destructive of my efforts.

Has anyone had success keeping raccoons away?

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Comments

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,375 admin

    @shllnzl Dogs are our only defense here against raccoons.

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  • marjstratton
    marjstratton Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭✭

    Good luck. Not a fan of racoons. Once I was taking my usual evening walk around the neighborhood and a gang of racoons stared me down. I was very nervous about that. Fortunately, they stood their ground, and I chickened out and crossed the street to get away from them.

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  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,920 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I wish I had one to suggest. Raccoons are very difficult to deter. I haven't seen them at my current garden location, but they are pretty common all over North America.

    Keeping them out of trash cans is mostly a matter of lids that seal tightly. I am not sure how good they are at climbing. Does anyone know firsthand whether a deer fence is much of an obstacle?

    Raccoons are just too smart for our own good!

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  • Linda Bittle
    Linda Bittle Posts: 1,502 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I'd say don't just discourage them, trap them if it's legal to do so. They do a lot of damage to ground-nesting birds and carry potentially dangerous parasites. They are undeniably cute, but they are super smart and do dig and climb very well. I don't think you can fence them out unless you completely enclose the garden area - top, too.

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  • VermontCathy
    VermontCathy Posts: 1,920 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Linda Bittle But don't trap them unless you are prepared to kill them. Trapping them live and then releasing them elsewhere is just shifting the problem and creating a new issue.

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  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,816 ✭✭✭✭✭
    https://community.thegrownetwork.com/discussion/comment/920363#Comment_920363

    Thanks everyone for your support; I expected that I will have problems. It's the price I pay for wanting to be so close to nature.

    I just got another dog, 13 whole pounds of her. This one is safe from the predatory birds because of her size; however, I can't leave her alone in the yard due to other creatures here, such as raccoons, bobcat, coyotes and neighbor dogs on the loose. Heck, the roadrunners stare me down and probably won't run from her either.

    Luckily I don't have deer and I think the coyotes have killed off the rabbits. Just the squirrels and birds....

    I will give it a try anyway. The garden trays spin on the biggest tower, maybe that will startle the raccoons. I think I will be sprinkling cinnamon and black pepper around too.

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  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,842 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I had issues with raccoons when I had fishponds, the raccoons in my backyard seemed to have gone to MIT, nothing I did seem to work. I had a friend that put up an electric fence around their pond which seemed to work.

    Whatever you come up with you may want to vary the methods, apparently raccoons teach their young when they figure out a work-around.

    Good luck!

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  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,375 admin
    edited March 1
    https://community.thegrownetwork.com/discussion/comment/920372#Comment_920372

    They are excellent at climbing and will pull shingles off a roof. I would imagine that a deer fence would not be a problem for them to climb.

    @VermontCathy They will come back to where you took them from.

    Around here, it is known that they can carry rabies, and even without that, they can hurt a person badly. They are not something to mess around with.

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  • judithdiotte
    judithdiotte Posts: 10 ✭✭✭
    https://community.thegrownetwork.com/discussion/849135/anyone-know-of-raccoon-repellent

    I would suggest an electric fence around it. It does not have to be strong enough to kill them but strong enough to cause them pain, so they do not climb it.

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  • shllnzl
    shllnzl Posts: 1,816 ✭✭✭✭✭

    A neighbor three houses down has a large garden started. I'm hoping sheer quantity of food will steer the raccoons that direction.

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  • ister5
    ister5 Posts: 4 ✭✭✭

    Years ago, we had a raccoon problem. It kept popping in my garden. So, I went down a rabbit hole, searching for info on how to stop this. I found a blog post that mentioned that human urine, specifically from a male, will repel them. So I told my husband to start peeing in the area after work, before he comes inside. He did!! It worked!! No kidding! It’s a bit unconventional, but it’s natural and it works. We never had a problem with them again. 😜

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  • Sandy Forest
    Sandy Forest Posts: 28 ✭✭✭

    We have a homestead with a similar predator profile to yours, and we are in a very large forest sprinkled with small communities, so we have the right kind of terrain. We are in a protected wetlands, and it is common to find fishponds on some properties, but not ours. We have an 8 foot fence around our garden, but a not so tight gate. We have been gardening in it for 12 years and have not seen anything like raccoon predation. And we have a flock of laying hens who graze in rotating pasture, and they are always protected with electric fence. Our neighbors see raccoons, but we do not. We also do not have plumbing, and dump our urine hither and yon daily, though not in our garden except for the occasional straw bale crop. The only other thing that might be working in our favor is that, having read that corn is a very seductive crop for raccoons, we have never planted it. Electric fencing around your garden towers sounds like a good workaround. Wishing you a bountiful harvest!

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