Racoons and skunks are pretty adept at finding food. In fact, they can smell the grubs that sit a few inches below ground when they infect my lawn each fall.
That's a problem because they have no qualms about digging up my yard to get those tasty nuggets.
Now, I have to figure out how to keep those critters from completely destroying my lawn each fall. I could trap them but that's a pain in the butt, I'd have to relocate them, and others would take their place. I could try a solar powered high-pitched device that senses movement and puts out a sound that would annoy them away...actually, I tried this and saw a racoon digging happily away in front of the device that was clicking away furiously with no effect on the animal.
I could poison the grubs. Which, is what I did last fall when nothing else would work but I don't want to do this if I don't have to because it kills pretty much all insects in the lawn, including the beneficial ones. It did stop the digging pretty much immediately, though.
This year, I'm going to try another natural remedy. I would have done it last year but you need to apply in mid summer and it was too late when the animals came in the fall.
You can buy beneficial nematodes (hb nematodes if you're trying to find the correct ones) which are microscopic worms that are parasites to grubs. They attack and feed on the grubs, killing them, and robbing the racoons and skunks of the food their digging for in my lawn.
The nematodes come refrigerated, you can keep the package in your refrigerator for up to two weeks. They're microscopic so it looks more like a powder than worms.
You need to apply them either early in the morning or at dusk. First, you water your lawn.
Then, I pour the package into my watering can...
...fill with water...
.
..and sprinkle into the lawn.
That's it, I'm done. Let's see how it works.
Darryl Musick
Copyright 2002 - All Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment