It may seem strange, but putting chili powder in your garden in October has several advantages, and not just to keep away little critters!
With fall, gardeners are often looking for natural and effective ways to protect their plantings before winter. Among the most unexpected tips, the use of chili powder. Although this condiment is associated more with cooking than gardening, sprinkling chili powder in your garden has many benefits. It could well be the ideal solution to protect your plants and promote their health, but also take care of another animal.
One of the main reasons gardeners use chili powder is its formidable effectiveness as a natural repellent. Many pests, such as rabbits, rodents and squirrels, are very sensitive to the smell and pungent taste of chili peppers. By lightly sprinkling the soil around your plants, you create an invisible but deterrent barrier. Pests, bothered by capsaicin – the active compound in chili peppers – prefer to avoid areas where it is present.
Using this tip, you can also protect birds by helping them get food. Autumn is indeed the ideal time to help birds feed before they hibernate or migrate for the winter. Unfortunately, if you put food in your garden, other less deserving animals like squirrels or foxes will try to steal that food.
This is where chili powder comes in, repelling these little critters. Here’s why you should consider using chili pepper in the garden now. If you have a place where you leave bird food (and if you don’t, consider purchasing one), you can leave a mixture of peanuts, seeds, mealworms, and slices of fruit like apples for the birds to eat.
If you add chili powder, the birds will have all the food to themselves. Indeed, birds are not affected at all by chili powder, while squirrels and foxes hate it. If you don’t have chili powder, you can put a little chili sauce like Tabasco on the bird food.