How to Keep Raccoons Out of Your Garden

If you’re a homeowner, then you may have experienced the tragedies of a raccoon rummaging through your garbage or eating and destroying your garden. If you want to be able to keep your produce this year, keep reading to see how to keep raccoons out of your garden.

Raccoons are smart so you may need to deploy multiple tactics to keep raccoons away.

We are new homeowners, and super happy about it.

We’ve never had a driveway or a backyard so this is very exciting for us.

My mom planted some tomato plants into our garden over the weekend. What do I see the next day? An accumulation of animal waste in my garden and around my compost.

What kind of animal do you say? Well, it looks like cat poop. However, I know that cats like to bury their waste so this couldn’t be from a cat.

After I told my son that there was poop in the garden, he naturally went over there to investigate and said that he also saw “indigested plant materials,” pretty scientific terminology if you ask me.

So we then headed over to Google and asked what could be pooping in my garden and after some research, discovered that is likely a raccoon.

I was then freaked out since I read about all the diseases they can carry like rabies and roundworms so I had to find a solution quick.

First things first, I went in with gloves, boots, a shovel, and pail to remove the poop. Then I had to research how to keep raccoons away and this is what I found.

If you’ve woken up to your trash cans littered over the driveway and garbage spread out everywhere, you have been visited by a raccoon.

You’ll also want to ensure they don’t come back because they are one smart beast.

Raccoons are nocturnal so come out at night to look for food. They are omnivores and eat both meat, fruit and vegetables.

They love getting fruit from the garden and find tons of goodies in the garbage.

Ways to keep raccoons out of your garden

In my own research this is what I found.

Motion detected sprinkler

We want to scare raccoons away from our property so that they don’t feel comfortable returning.

Electric fence

Keep raccoons away from the garden with an electric fence.

Sticks in the ground

You can push sticks into the ground around the perimeter of the garden and compost so that the raccoons cannot step in the area around the garden.

Pepper Repellant

There are natural repellants that you can make using hot pepper or onion and garlic. There are commercial repellents that are available as well.

Safer 5929 Brand Critter Ridder Animal Repellent GranulesNatural Armor Animal & Rodent Repellent Spray. Repels Skunks, Raccoons, Rats, Mice, Deer Rodents & Critters. Repeller & Deterrent in Powerful Peppermint Formula – 128 FL. OZ. Gallon Ready to UseFRYZOO Ultrasonic Pest Animal Expeller Outdoor Solar Powered with Motion Sensor, Repel Cat Dog Deer Bird, Waterproof Expeller for Farm, Garden (Green)

 

Secure Trash Bins

To stop raccoons going through your garbage, you’ll need to secure your garbage lids. We put a heavy brick on top of our lids to keep them secure.

Pet Feces

As disgusting as this sounds, you can scatter dog or cat poop around your garden to scare away raccoons so they know another animal lives there. This just seems completely unsanitary and I was trying to avoid raccoon poop.

Male Urine

Yes, this is what I found, again, didn’t seem sanitary. But the urine from a male household member

The sprinkler option is not in my budget, the electric fence is not safe with kids and animals running around as well as the sticks sticking out of the ground.

Dog feces seems less dangerous so I went with dog hair and dog urine instead. The boys were excited about possibly having to pee in our yard since they love peeing outside but that wasn’t going to happen.

Don’t ask me, I don’t know why. But we let the dog do it instead.

They are supposedly afraid of dogs so this lets them know that there is a dog in the area. I had the dog pee near my compost and my garden. There are now large wads of my dog’s hair around there as well.

Finally a use for her shedding coat.

This has been the best method that we’ve found. Once it rains though, we have to go and have her do her business there again since it wears off.

Ah, the troubles of homeownership. Love it.

Let me know if you’ve had raccoon problems and what you did to fix it.