Hi, ive recently moved house and i have a vegetable patch which keeps getting dug up by what i believe are badgers and foxes, i've put up a 3 foot picket fence but somehow they keep getting in, one time they dug under, or they are jumping over? does anyone know a safe harmless way to deter them from entering my garden? :-? i obviously need to raise the fence but i still need a way to stop them from coming in, any ideas?
Fox's and badgers are good climbers and diggers. I'd recommend atleast a 5 ft fence with chicken wire at the bottom attached to the fence and buried atleast 18inches in the ground.
Badgers I don't know about, but I do know foxes jump! We have fox here in Texas, even in our pasture. They can jump at least 4' in the air, maybe more. As suggested, a taller fence with some wire buried in the ground to deter digging is probably going to protect your garden. You can also put some repellent spray around until you get the taller fence installed. The spray is based on predator urine (I know, ugh!) and makes the invader think he/she may get eaten. I can't recommend a brand of repellent because I don't know the brands available to you. Ask at a garden center and they may be able to help.
What is your location? Fox are opportunistic and will eat some vegetables but usually they eat small rodents, birds if available and such. Are these animals digging after they get inside ? Sound more like armadillo, possums, skunks. They will dig looking for roots,grubs and worms.
I can't imagine that fox would invade your garden. Rabbits, groundhogs, squirrels, chipmunks, skunks(looking for grubs) opossum (if you compost directly into the garden),deer and I am sure there are more, too, but these are the normal pests. Fences are your best friend and a repellent to go along with it. My FIL always fenced in the garden and put his noregian elkhound in there. He never bothered anything but the pesty rodents. Those he killed. That really made a difference in the control of the destructive animals. So, if you have a dog, that may help deter, even if you put their feces out around the edge of your property. I have noticed a huge difference in what visits out yard at nighttime since we put the dog outside in a fence.
Some have used dog hair from a groomer to sprinkle around a garden but have no idea if it works. Couldn`t hurt to try.
