How to Keep Animals Out of Your Garden

As many gardeners can attest, keeping animals out of a garden is perhaps one of the hardest challenges of gardening.

Animals can be plucky and determined, and keeping them out might seem impossible.

At times, it seems like no matter what they somehow are able to get into your garden. With the exception of personal 24/7 hour surveillance, it may seem like there isn’t a surefire way to keep animals and pests out of your garden.

However, there are in fact many ways to keep animals out of your garden. What it mainly comes down to is what animals are coming in and the way your garden is set up. These tips can be applied to or used in every kind of garden.

Animal Repellents

Animal Repellents are objects or substances that ward off animals either through sight or, typically, smell.

Repellents are designed to keep animals from wanting to venture near your garden at all, meaning that you can rest easy knowing that they aren’t sniffing around your hard work.

Ultrasonic Pest Repellers

These nifty gadgets emit ultrasonic sounds and flashing lights that keep animals away from your garden. Humans cannot hear the sounds and the flashing lights are very dim so as to not disturb any humans.

Getting one that is solar-powered means it does not need chemicals or batteries, and also, they are fairly cheap. You can purchase these devices, which stake into the ground, at many big box and gardening stores.

Blood Meal

For larger animals, blood meal can be a great repellent to keep them away. Blood meal can be purchased at many sporting and gardening stores and is great at keeping away animals like deer.

Once you have some, simply sprinkle it around the perimeter of your garden and repeat every few days. After a while, you may not need to use it anymore, however, it is always good to have some on hand in case the animals come back.

Animal Repelling Herbs & Plants

There are many herbs and plants that can be grown in and around a garden to deter animals from coming near. Plants such as mint, marigold, catnip, and chives are all very effective at deterring pests. 

These plants can be grown in your garden or in containers next to your garden and still produce the same effect.

Create Barricades

To start, creating barricades is the simplest way to keep animals out of your garden. If there is something blocking the animals’ path into the garden, they might lose interest in the garden altogether. 

Further, barricades make it so that animals stick around longer and are more likely to be spotted by you or scared off, never to return.

Raised Bed Gardens

One of the easiest ways to barricade your garden is to keep it off of the ground. This tip is great for smaller animals and vermin, but not as effective with larger animals such as deer.

Building a raised bed garden means building a structure that keeps the soil and plants up off the ground and in a sturdy container. There are many benefits to raised bed gardening, namely that keeping it off the ground makes it harder for smaller pests to waltz in.

There are tons of guides on this subject, and you can even buy raised beds already built at many hardware and gardening stores.

Build A Fence/Wall

Perhaps the most rudimentary tip on this list, building a wall can deter animals of all sizes from getting into your garden depending on the size of the wall. Many gardeners build smaller fences around their garden both for decorative as well as pest repelling purposes.

Fences can be simple to build and install around your garden, but you might try a wall as well. Of course, the blockade that you will want depends greatly on your garden and the aesthetic you want to go for.

That being said, walls and fences are incredibly effective at keeping animals out of your garden, and can easily be used in tandem with other tips on this list to maximize effectiveness.

Cover Your Plants

Covering your plants means that animals might still be able to get into your garden, but not at your plants. There are many ways to cover your plants, but I recommend sturdy floating plant covers.

This way, your plants have room to grow and won’t be crushed by the covers. If you are covering your plants to prevent pests from getting to them, it is best to invest in quality covers.

Most animals have some way of getting through softer materials such as cloth, so under these circumstances, it is better to get a durable cover to protect your plants. Covering your plants can also reduce the smell coming from them that attracts plants.

Further, it makes it harder for animals to know that they are even there to begin with, which can help fix problems before they even start.

Crushed Eggshells

For small pests such as bugs and snails, sprinkling crushed eggshells around the perimeter of your garden is a great way to keep them away from your plants. Animals such as slugs cannot pass over the eggshells, even if they are finely crushed, keeping them away from your plants.

Further, the eggshells provide a good source of nutrients to your plants, so it’s a win-win situation.

Keeping animals out of your garden might seem like a tall order, but it can be done. Whether you seek to repel animals from coming near or deter them from getting in, there are plenty of ways to accomplish these tasks.

What’s more, you can even do both at once to keep animals away no matter what. With the tips on this list, you can start getting rid of animal problems and get back to taking care of your plants.