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.
Here rodents are all invasive pests so getting rid of as many as possible to save our flora and fauna is very important. Councils occasionally do grants for this and wasp control (also invasive and non native with specialised targeted baits that don’t harm native insects). We’ve been working hard to establish some native bush along both sides of our ridge with the top as a garden so we aren’t going to let the rodents eat all our progress haha