Growing vegetables in your home garden is a great way to get out in the sun, increase the amount of fiber and nutrients in your diet, and reduce your reliance on the heavily polluting industrial agriculture industry — all while getting yourself some delicious treats.
Unfortunately, the food you grow for yourself can also end up being treats for squirrels. One home gardener heard about an ingenious method for protecting their ears of corn from squirrels and tried it out.
The scoop
"When the squirrels are so bad that my ears need socks," the gardener posted to the r/Gardening subreddit. "I saw this online as a way to protect them from pests. Anyone have any other way to protect my flint corn while … they dry on the stalk?"
The accompanying picture shows several ears of corn, each fitted with its own fancy dress sock to protect it from scavenging squirrels.
How it's helping
As the poster noted, this squirrel deterrent has appeared on the internet before — the Wichita Eagle ran an article almost a decade ago about the practice, writing: "Turns out [putting socks on the ears] is the way Paul Barker finally found a few years ago to keep critters such as kernel-munching raccoons, possums, and squirrels off his corn. Barker slips the socks on the ears when the silk starts to change color toward brown. And once he puts the socks on, he can expect to harvest the ears in 12 to 17 days."
While the practice itself is fairly self-explanatory, it definitely took some outside-the-box thinking to come up with this one.
What everybody's saying
The poster's fellow Redditors were delighted by the ears wearing socks.
"Can you imagine being a neighbor seeing socks on the corn over the fence? I would be so confused," wrote one commenter.
"My neighbors have learned to ignore my more eccentric tendencies. They get free honey and apples and I get well wishes and patience. I really can't imagine living anywhere else," the original poster replied.
"This is the first time I've seen this, extra points for creativity!" another commenter chimed in.
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