Keeping summer pests out of your gardens
Summer is the time for gardening, but in order to keep gardens growing, animals have to be kept out.
Whether it’s a flower garden or a vegetable garden, the plants are attractive to pests.
Nurseries like McKee’s have lots of customers with pest problems. Some of the most common pests they get are gophers and voles.
Travis Brasher, owner of McKee’s, said repellents are his suggestion of the way to go.
“The repellant we have, it’s castor oil granules and you just put it down and water it in,” he explained. “It gets in their tunnels and on their fur and they don’t like it so they just leave the area and go somewhere else.”
Or, if the pest is something bigger like a skunk – then you want to use a different kind of repellent than you would with moles and gophers.
“There’s a lot of bunnies running around and skunks – you’ll see them once in awhile,” Brasher said. “We have a repellant called “repels all” that is a granule that you put around your plants or around your area and you water it in and it keeps them away. they don’t like the smell and they don’t like what it’s doing and they will just leave.”
The repellents are not harful to the animals, it just deters them from getting in the garden. It’s also not harmful to the plants or house pets.
If you don’t like repellents, traps can also be used. Traps can also be rented from Idaho Fish and Game.
If you trap the animals, they could also be relocated to outside the city. Idaho Fish and Game said if you do that, just make sure if it’s on private property, that you have the land owner’s permission.
There are also some poisons that could be used to get rid of animals like gophers and voles. But McKee’s said be careful and get a poison that can be buried underneath the dirt because surface poisons can be eaten by other animals like birds or personal house pets.
The repellents and trapped can be found at most home and garden shops.
