The spring sun is ushering in brighter and greener days. You can practically smell those garden flowers blooming. Or taste the tomatoes.
The problem is, so can the pests. You know the garden grazers I’m talking about: deer, rabbits and elk. Not to mention the squirrels, voles, shrews, mice and the like. It’s enough to make the garden feel like a castle under siege.
Naturally there is no shortage of pest control “solutions.” Soap on sticks, motion-activated water cannons, alarm systems. My parents have gone to such extremes as saving their own urine to pour down chipmunk and other holes to ward off the savage attacks of ground-burrowing buggers. And the soap-on-stick is no joke. It’s a go-to for deer control. I can’t decide which is the bigger eyesore, though. Soap-stick or deer fences and deer fencing.
I think it’s safe to say that most homeowners don’t want to use unnecessary chemicals in their gardens as a pest prevention method. I came across these “100% Organic Pest Repellent” coyote urine granules by Shake-Away. The coyote is a natural predator of deer and other garden enemies, so naturally the scent of its urine should scare off would-be feeders. As natural pest repellents go, I suppose it doesn’t get much closer to mother nature.
Apparently this stuff is the “only EPA-registered predator urine-based product” in the repellent industry. It’s hard to get excited about a urine-based product, but this does have me curious. Is it accurate to call it a “green” pest control product, when in fact its color is…? Well, okay. Moving on.
I’m going to push this stuff on the parents, whose garden is extensive and constantly ravaged by deer and others. I’ll let you readers know the results. Who knows? We may all be singing praises to the coyote when full bloom lingers for longer than a day.
What do you use for deer repellent or pest controls in your garden?
Want more pest control advice? Here’s a basic primer on Pest Control. Check out this article on Eliminating Summertime Pests, too.
