Rats can be a huge problem in the garden as they eat your crops, leave droppings, and carry diseases.
Gardens serve as sanctuaries where blooms flourish and you can unwind peacefully, yet an uninvited visitor can shatter this tranquillity — the dreaded rat. These troublesome creatures pose a threat to your garden’s beauty as they devour your plants and scatter droppings throughout the space.
Moreover, these nuisances also harbour illnesses such as leptospirosis, salmonella, and hantavirus and can reproduce at an alarming rate. Therefore, should you spot any rodents in your outdoor space, swift action is essential to eradicate them.
Specialists at Epic Gardening and Buzz Boss are unanimous about one particular deterrent for tackling rats: onions, reports the Express.
Lorin Mielsen from Epic Gardening highlighted how onions possess a sharp scent that rats “hate them”. Furthermore, you don’t need to grow them for this method to be effective.
Simply position an onion where you believe the rats are gaining access, and “they will take one smell and run out of your garden”.
When using this technique, it’s crucial to replace the onion every few days to prevent decay.
As an alternative, think about planting garlic around your garden bed perimeters, which tends to ward off various pests beyond just rodents. The specialists at Buzz Boss described onions as a “cooking staple that’s a nemesis of rats”.
They explained: “It’s a powerful rat repellent because of its pungent smell and taste.
“Onion contains sulphur compounds that irritate the eyes and nose (of rats, too) and allicin, which can cause anaemia and oxygen deprivation in rats if ingested.”
Yet, the experts at Buzz Boss suggest growing onions in your own garden for a plentiful supply. Onions are a cool-season crop that can be propagated from seeds, sets or young plants.
They thrive in full sunlight and fertile, damp soil. Harvesting can take place once the bulbs have fully developed and the tops begin to yellow and topple over.