A couple of years ago my son gave me a trail cam to observe who was visiting the garden at night. These are great little gadgets for gardeners, and fairly inexpensive. Turns out our visitors were a predictable lot: raccoon(s), possum and armadillos. Early morning visitors are just who you would expect: birds, squirrels and the neighbor’s cat.
The videos were taken in my potting area at the back of our property.
I have wanted to share my favorite videos on Garden-FL. Unfortunately, I don’t like the way WordPress reduces videos. I finally decided to use YouTube. If anybody is interested, here is the Garden-FL channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfvaNLPqtwhKZdtdWHl3OLg
I do nothing to encourage the nighttime visitors, although planting a garden will be understood by every critter as an invitation to dine. That’s just how it is. I am careful to pick up dropped fruit or other edible scraps. I don’t want the garden to appear more inviting than it apparently does. My rolling composter, where all our food scraps and garden scraps go, includes a secure latch that not even raccoon hands can manipulate.
Raccoons are easily the most determined nighttime scavengers in my garden. One thing though, their sensitive noses really hate the smell of the capsaicin in hot peppers. I grow my jalapenos among the mild peppers, and this seems to be enough to persuade them to leave all the peppers alone. So I make a simple spray of a few sliced-open jalapeños steeped in hot water over night. I spray this around newly-planted seeds, and around fruiting tomato plants. This helps. Does it keep them away entirely? Of course not. But it certainly helps.
Night Time Visitors Caught on our TrailCam
