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How to Identify and Get Rid of Raccoons in the Garden

Raccoons might be cute, but they’re no good for your garden: here are tips on how to remove them from your yard.

Written By: Catherine Boeckmann Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Got raccoons raiding your garden like it’s their personal buffet? These masked troublemakers may be cute, but they’re clever, persistent, and incredibly destructive. If you’re trying to figure out how to get rid of raccoons, you’re not alone. From snacking on sweet corn to turning over trash cans, raccoons are notorious for causing backyard chaos. Here’s how to identify raccoons and get rid of them before they turn your garden into their playground.

What Are Raccoons?

Raccoons (Procyon lotor) have masks over their eyes because they could rob even a bank vault. These resourceful animals are second in persistence and imagination to no other animal (unless it’s a squirrel at a bird feeder).

Raccoons are great climbers, swimmers, jumpers, and runners. Their five-toed paws make them very dexterous, and their agility can allow them to outsmart every human concoction used to deter them. If they aren’t breaking into your garden, they might try to climb into your chimney to use it as a den.

Raccoons do not hibernate during the winter, but they will live in dens for periods of severe weather, causing them to lose a lot of their body fat in northern areas. They often live in hollow trees during the warm part of the year. Populations of raccoons often include many youngsters, and families will stay together for about a year.

What Do Raccoons Eat?

Raccoons are nocturnal and omnivorous, meaning they eat anything from grubs to crayfish, as well as all the plants and vegetables that you have in your garden. Especially in the fall, they develop a taste for fruits like apples, peaches, and pears, but they also enjoy a variety of vegetables, like sweet corn, potatoes, and peas.

Even though wild raccoons prefer areas with trees and a source of water, more and more of them are raiding gardens because gardens are an easy source of food. They’ll be even happier if you have a source of water and some forest near your garden.

Identification

How to Identify Raccoons

Raccoons are small mammals 2 to 3 feet in length and weighing about 10 to 30 pounds. Raccoons have distinct black “masks” on their faces, which often characterizes them as bandits. They have fluffy, ringed tails, and their bodies are varying shades of gray, with hints of light brown. The forepaws of raccoons resemble tiny human hands with five toes, which makes raccoons very dexterous.

Raccoons are nocturnal creatures, meaning that they feed at night. This might make it hard for you to identify them, as you might only see the damage they cause. Looking for raccoon tracks near the damage might also help you to identify them. Learn more about identifying animal tracks.

raccoon tracks in mud
After a rainy night, five-toed tracks might appear in the mud around your garden. These raccoon tracks are easily distinguished from most other four-toed mammals.
Photo Credit: M. Sorrentino, University of Vermont. 

Raccoon Damage

If your lawn has a lot of holes in it, or your mulch pile has a lot of holes, you probably have a nightly visitor. Raccoons will dig up lawns and mulch piles looking for insects to eat. They will also empty bird feeders, so keep an eye on your feeders to see if you have a raccoon problem. Additionally, raccoons are known to raid chicken coops, stealing eggs and even killing chickens.

Of course, if you have corn, there’s nothing more infuriating than finding stalks toppled and ears ripped open and half-eaten. (Even more frustrating is the idea, offered by animal researchers, that raccoons are wasteful because they don’t really like sweet corn all that much; in fact, they seem to prefer sunflower seeds, dog food, and sardines.)

Control and Prevention

How to Get Rid of Raccoons

The persistence and proliferation of raccoons have inspired many solutions; one of them is bound to work for you. Here are tips from all our readers and staff! See what works for you.

  • If your raccoon problem is persistent, you can set live raccoon traps in your garden and release the animal at least 3 miles away (check local and state laws first). Raccoons will eat virtually anything; try fish-flavored dry cat food, chicken necks, ears of corn, or whole peanuts for bait.
  • To keep raccoons at a distance, try scattering blood meal around corn plants. Also, try sprinkling wood ashes around your plants.
  • Grind up garlic, mix it with an equal portion of chili powder, and spread it around the garden. Frequent applications are needed.
  • One reader says, “Hang shoes and clothes that smell of human perspiration around your garden or corn patch.” Similarly, “You can try to repel raccoons by putting dog hair or human hair around the garden.”
  • Tune a radio to a rock station and set it in the middle of your garden and/or corn patch. Leave it on all night. The noise will scare away the raccoons.
  • Put lights in the garden. A bright lantern will sometimes keep Sun-shy raccoons away.
  • Plant enough corn for man and beast alike.
  • Add some pinwheels and streamers to your garden to scare the creatures.
  • Folk wisdom suggests that you spread newspapers around the perimeter of the garden.

raccoon climbing a fence

How to Prevent Raccoons

  • Build a good fence around your garden. Beware though, raccoons are agile and intelligent; make sure your fence will keep them out. You may need to install an electric fence. This is a good measure. A two-wire fence, with one wire 4 to 6 inches above the ground and the other at 12 inches, should be effective.
  • If your home is near your garden, remove any possible food sources from the area, including pet food and bird seed. Buy garbage cans with locking lids and keep garbage inside if possible. Keep pet doors sealed shut between dusk and dawn. Cap your chimneys. Seal any holes or gaps in attics and roofs.
  • Grow tall varieties of corn such as ‘Silver Queen’, ‘Kandy Korn’, and ‘Lancelot’. Taller plants bear their ears higher, causing raccoons trouble getting leverage to topple stalks and ravage them. They prefer shorter plants.
  • You can also plant squash around your corn or other plants to deter raccoons; they don’t like walking on the prickly squash vines.

Do you have any more tips for getting rid of a raccoon? Let us know below!

Garden Pests

About The Author

Catherine Boeckmann

Catherine Boeckmann

Executive Digital Editor and Master Gardener

Catherine Boeckmann loves nature, stargazing, and gardening so it’s not surprising that she and The Old Farmer’s Almanac found each other. She leads digital content for the Almanac website, and is also a certified master gardener in the state of Indiana.

Read more from Catherine Boeckmann

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Comments

<span>Mary Vaessen</span> Tue, 07/29/2014 - 16:00
I live in town & the racoons & possums are all over the place. The problem is my neighbors have an apple tree near my fence in the backyard by my garage/shed. How can I get rid of them with that issue, ask my neighbors to cut down their tree? I find their feces & chewed up apples all over my yard!!
<span>Susan Heaford</span> Sun, 05/13/2018 - 11:51
We have many unwanted raccoons! Unwanted because we have a little dog and feed feral cats! A few years ago my little dog Lily, God rest her soul, ate some coon poop and get deathly sick! So bad that our Vet told me to prepare she may not make it! Raccoon feces is the most deadly because they eat anything and everything! I took vacation and spent 24 -7 with her for a week! With tears, love, and prayers, I finally got her to start eating. Boiled deer hamburger and rice. Hand feeding crumbles every hour. So I am not a fan of those little bandits. We are very careful now with this pup. They have made living in the country a nightmare with all the destruction they cause!
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 05/11/2015 - 04:16

We'd suggest that you talk to your neighbor about the issue. Raccoons are easier than deer. You could simply add four t-posts and some chicken wire about a month before harvest and the raccoons can't get to it. The cage doesn't have to be up year-round and then your neighbor can still eat the apples.

 <span>Mommabear9</span> Fri, 07/25/2014 - 16:40
I didn't realize it was illegal to use mothballs, but a friend of ours told us that was a good way to keep raccoons out of our corn patch. I spread the mothballs all around the patch and now I am wondering if the corn will absorb the chemicals in the moth balls because it rained. Should we not eat this corn crop?
<a title="View user profile." href="/author/editors">The Editors</a> Mon, 07/28/2014 - 17:17

Yes, mothballs may be illegal to use food crops in some areas. They are indeed dangerous to use around children and animals, but that's because they could ingest them. It's probably fine to eat this crop and just use them around ornamental crops in the future.

 <span>Dstee</span> Fri, 07/04/2014 - 21:51
I have a koi pond and my koi are disappearing I think either blue heron or raccoon s are getting them any ideas to get rid of or scare off these critters
<span>Dstee</span> Fri, 07/04/2014 - 21:47
My koi are disappearing from my koi pond and I think blue heron or raccoon s are getting them any ideas how to keep them away or discourage them
<span>Amandacb</span> Sun, 06/22/2014 - 01:45
All of this is ridiculous advice! Raccoons are full of parasites and disease. They can have rabies as well. The eggs in their feces can have ringworm eggs that can live from months to years on your ground and garden. Furthermore, the urine is highly parasitic and an animal that steps in urine and then licks its paws or drinks/eats from same dish, can get very ill. Ringworm, rabies, distemper, raccoon disease, blindness etc. If people would trust professionals to trap is best. No one should be advised to trap or feed them, please be wildlife smart!
<span>Jan</span> Sat, 08/19/2017 - 20:33
As I've commented above, it can be very frustrating to get some animal control people to even respond. At least it is around here. We had a bear trashing the common dumpster, and had a very hard time getting Fish and Game out here to relocate it. I suspect that some of the people who do their own trapping are driven to it because they try to get professionals to do it, and they won't. You can call, but good luck if they cooperate!
<span>Joyce S</span> Thu, 06/29/2017 - 20:56
ringworm is a fungus, not an egg-producing intestinal parasite.