This garden thief was so quick that it didn't even need the cover of darkness.
In the summer, a Reddit user shared a video of a squirrel wreaking havoc on a garden bed. In a matter of moments one evening, it had absconded with four plants.
"I caught the thief who took my bell pepper plants," the poster wrote. "I was sad I lost my plants but it seems mama squirrel needed them to build the nest."
"Luckily the squirrels in my backyard (and they are many) have not figured out they can eat bell peppers," one commenter said. "To be fair we have a squirrel feeding stations with nuts for them to eat instead, that might solve your problem OP, just make a dedicated feeding spot for them."
The poster replied: "I wish it only ate the fruit. It ripped the whole plant out."
Gardens are prime real estate for rodents and other wildlife, including deer, rabbits, and raccoons.
To save your crop, one TikToker shared a hack: Place forks — tines up — around seedlings and plants to keep squirrels, birds, and similar small critters from burgling you.
Planting nasturtiums, marigolds, and mustard, sprinkling dog or human hair, and spraying a hot pepper mixture in your garden can also deter the animals. Repellents, motion-activated sprinklers or air blasters, mint, chicken wire, and predator decoys may be worth a try as well.
Still, it's tough sledding to keep safe the food you grow. Around the same time as this gardener was robbed, another brazen act of thievery was caught on camera.
"They did severe damage to my peaches this year," another user sympathized. "They picked the
fruits and only took one bite and then dropped them on the drive way. Very wasteful."
The poster wrote: "So far they haven't touched the tomatoes or eggplants and hopefully they won't."
I caught the thief who took my bell pepper plants 🐿️
byu/fast0219 ingardening
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