I love growing my own food but I have had to limit the types of plants I grow because rats always come and eat them.
In previous years I have had rats devour my entire beet, carrot, pea, and strawberry harvests each in a matter of one or two nights.
I set snap traps every night with peanut butter (and trip them every morning so I don’t kill any birds). Last year I killed 17, this year I have already killed 5.
I am now growing peas that climb taller so the rats can’t reach them. Next year I plan on hanging my strawberry plants off the ground. I have started removing all the lower branches of my tomatoes so they can’t climb them. I have given up on carrots, beets, and daikon…
Has anyone found any effective methods to manage this? My neighbour won’t do anything about the rats and their property is entirely overgrown.
I have heard spreading hot pepper flakes can discourage them from coming around.
You are only going to have success with a physical barrier. Consider rat bait boxes, as well keeping up as the traps, but the rats must have a food source next door, so they will never be able to be eradicated by you alone. One rat will destroy your whole crop.
Make a cage out of coated chicken wire. It had to be a box shape, covered on the top as well, it also has to extend outward 1 foot on the ground from the base of the “box.”
Visualize a cardboard box with the open side on the ground and the flaps extended on the ground.
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Four sticks in the ground for corners, then zip ties to hold it all together. Cover the outward flaps with soil or mulch to confuse those rat fckrs.