Cover them with something till they're established. I use wire mesh waste paper baskets from the dollar store, freezer baskets, the tops of my two litres...
Even the robins will rip up sprouts..they see the fresh earth and think a worm must be right under the surface!

I am battling squirrels as well. They keep digging holes in my containers.

I use plastic knives poked into the containers until the plants are bigger. The knives don't hurt the squirrels, just discourage them from digging in any open space around the young plants.

Squirrels. I can do without them. Darned tree rats.
I think robins are digging in my containers too upending my seedlings.

I can't tell you how many oak trees I've pulled from my containers on my deck alone! I still have about 100lbs of acorns to get rid of! LOL (I'm too cheap to pay for yard waste pickup while unemployed!)

The animals are driving me crazy. I have bunnies and voles (the voles may be gone now)

I use deterents:
Blood meal
Fake Urine granules (natures best is a brand)
Sluggo for the slugs!
And some liquid fence (I also sprinkle red pepper on leaves, we have no cats that can be hurt from the pepper in our neighborhood)

I swear I wish I had a dog or an outdoor cat now to get rid of these.

I was complaining and hubby said they love our yard cause we are the only ones with lots of yummy flowers to eat. He is right, the other neighbors barely have anything growing yet.

Karen

Gawdinfever -

This was definitely an acorn year for me as well.

I had read that someone saw their neighbor out with a shop vac sucking up acorns. We tried it this year. OMG - it is the GREATEST acorn solution EVER. It gets up all the acorns with so little work. When the vacuum fills up, simply dump them out into a bag.

I know it looks a little silly out there with a shop vac in the front yard, but it really works. Our neighbors saw us doing it and couldn't believe how well it worked. They're going to pick up their acorns that way now too!

erika ct: I thought about that, but the kids and I wound up getting most of them picked up. I actually thought of the shop vac too late. A lot of them had been walked on and pressed in the soil. Next year I will get at them early!

Truth be told; I didn't mind the squirrels until I found out they ate tomatoes! I will do my best to make sure that doesn't happen! (Wish me luck!) LOL

I haven't lived anywhere in 10 years where I had squirrels!

I bait YOUR pots in my ninja suit at night.
I haven't seen a squirrel in my own yard in AGES!
bwahahahah!

mmqchdygg, oh my that was so funny!!

I think someone puts rabbit food in my yard at night!

I am thinking of a loud wind chime to scare them away. Hubby was all for it as long as it annoyed the neighbors. lol he is a stinker

pitimpinai I found a peanut in one of the containers you gave me, I guess one of the tree rats was saving it there for later :)

Karen

The squirrels like to plant corn all over my yard and flower beds. The neighbor sets out the corn, they come to my yard to plant it, and in the process, digging out my seedlings. Dang squirrels.

Karen

I use old hanging wire baskets turned upside down over my containers, just remember to remove coco mats first:) At a garage sale I bought a set of those "hook together" shelves you use in the garage for sports equipment. I lay those individual panels over planted containers and I think the squirrels are concerned with their paws getting trapped so they leave my plants alone. I lucked out and got two sets of those shelf panels and use them every summer in addition to the wire baskets. They are easy to store as they are flat and can be stacked. I also use them over winter sown containers when the plastic comes off. Light, air and water pass through, what could be better? I also have window boxes the squirrels used to raid but I bought green plastic fencing, cut strips to fit the boxes then cut those down the center so I could plant my ivy geraniums down the middle of the boxes. After they were planted I anchored the plastic with landscape pins I cut from wire coat hangers. Hope this helps some of you. I also hate the tree rats and spent years coming up with these ideas and they do work.
Tina

I keep squirrels out of my gardens by feeding them. I have an old plastic sand pail and I fill it with stale nuts of any kind and put it at the back of my yard near the fence. They don't come any further. To keep them away from tulips (which I hardly grow any more) I form pieces of chicken wire around them. It doesn't show from the distance. This works well for small groupings, but I don't know how you'd do it for mass plantings. Surprise: Today I discovered that a pair of robins are building a nest outside the kitchen door to the deck. Now I'll have to go all around the house to get into the backyard. We do get some lovely views of the mother feeding her babies though.

Squirrels eat tomatoes?

Oh no.

my squirrels are out eating up the gonkzillion maple tree seeds that fell in the yard. I surrounded by silver maples....!

keep going, dudes, there's more where that came from.

I have one word - MEOW.

Squirrels eat tomatoes. But if you plant a lot of tomatoes then the loss is minimal. I have a dog whose greatest joy in life is chasing the squirrel as it runs along the top of the stockade fence. And it is joy of joys for her when I open the backdoor to let her out into the yard and the squirrel ~ The SQUIRREL!!! ~ is out there on the fence. Nothing like a good squirrel chase to start the day!

We also have two cats. Between the three pets they have never caught a squirrel. I do find dead mice which have been left for me as a gift, ick, and dear Tyler, our big 22lb Siberian, snagged a rabbit a couple of years back--he was soooo proud--but squirrels seem to have the upper hand, well, they have the upper fence and I suppose the keeps them alive.

I have given up on sowing nuts. It's pointless. It doesn't matter how deep a container or what cage I try the squirrels dig in or chew in or do them in--whatever, the squirrels have won. In my back garden I have a shrubbery and it is LOADED with baby oak trees. There isn't an oak tree three hundred feet from this garden. They are all gifts of Mr Squirrel. And I've got seedlings walnuts, and hazelnuts, and nuts I don't recognise--they're still attached to the seedling when I pull them up.

Oh well. What can you do. Squirrels are good for one thing most certainly. In late Autumn, look well at their tails. If the tail is skimpy and not very furry you can expect a mild winter. If their tail is fat, thick and bushy, you will have a winter with very cold weather. The squirrel wraps that tail around him in his nest during the winter, the fatter the tail then the warmer the squirrel.

T--and the dog steals tomatoes! And she thieves all the ripe winter squash too! Dagnabbit.

LOL Trudi! My dogs love chasing the squirrels along the top of the fence too. I think the squirrels taunt them - you'd think they would run down the other side of the fence immediately upon seeing a large predator barreling down on them, but they seem to know that the dogs can't run along the top of the fence.

Squirrels - or something - have gotten a few of my seedlings too. Luckily so far it hasn't been anything I didn't have more of in reserve (nice thing about winter sowing a lot!). I'm going to wait and let things get a little bigger before I plant out.