Fruit trees are an excellent way to grow your own produce, and ensure they’re free from toxic chemicals, or other growth agents that might be making your way into the fresh fruit at the market. Not only that, but growing your own fruit trees will keep you in a steady supply of your favorite fruit, and save you a pretty penny in the process. This is why you want to be taking all the measures you can, to protect these precious fruit trees and your fruit garden in general from nuisance wildlife.
Naturally, since your fruit garden will be rife with fallen fruit, or even tasty, ripe pieces of fruit, ready for the picking, it will attract more than its fair share of unwanted wild animals. After all, they enjoy a good piece of fruit, too.
So what can you do to keep them away?
1. Fence up your fruit garden.
Obviously, the first step you should think about taking is setting up a fence around your fruit garden. You could do this, as an alternative to fencing your entire yard or even fence up your fruit patch, as an added security measure. Even if a wild animal made it past one fence, it might not make it past the second one.
2. Keep your fruit trees away from buildings, structures, and other trees.
Since some wild animals, like squirrels, gain access to trees by jumping onto the branches from the roof of a building, or the branches of another, unfenced tree, it might be a good idea to trim your fruit trees in such a way that they’re not touching other trees or buildings.
Reversely, this can also be a good way to keep wild animals from jumping from the tree onto your roof.
3.Hire a professional.
In our opinion, the best way to protect your property from wildlife infestation is to reach out to an expert like A&D Construction Plus. They carry the necessary experience, tools, and protective gear, to make your nuisance wildlife problem a thing of the past. During their visit, a professional wildlife removal team will assess your property, and determine any potential weak spots around your garden. This way, not only do they remove the active infestation from your fruit garden, but also contribute to future prevention.
4.Use live traps.
If wild animals just won’t leave your fruit garden alone, try placing live bait traps around your fruit trees, and garden. Place some specific bait (tailored to the wild animal that’s giving you trouble), like nuts, or peanut butter, inside the trap. Check on it regularly. Then, once the animal has been caught, use the cage to transport it a good few miles away from your property, where it won’t be able to bother you (or your neighbors, ideally).
5.Use protective netting.
This is particularly useful for fruit bushes, though can also be used rather successfully for fruit trees. Cover your fruit bushes and trees in protective netting to protect your fruit from birds, and other nuisance wildlife. Leave the netting on while the fruit grows, and only remove it once the fruit is ripe for the picking.
6.Wrap your tree trunks in metal.
If you want to know how to protect your fruit trees from climbing animals, use wire mesh. Wrap it around the first couple of feet of your fruit trees, securing it in place with little iron nails. This will make it much harder for critters like squirrels or chipmunks to scale the tree, and get to the juicy stuff up top. Once the animal sees it can’t get to the good stuff, it’s likely to ditch your property and look for one where it can reach fruit.
