Don't let Possums decimate your garden produce - Take action or make a deal with them.

Do you have a possum problem? Do they eat your garden produce? Below are five ways how we deal with possums:

Coke bottle protection

·         Use physical protection – e.g. Protect paw paw or mango  fruit with a plastic shield made from a 2L Coke bottle. Cut off the bottom of a bottle and make a cut along the bottle so it can “open “ and the fruit can slide in. Another way is to  use chicken wire to wrap the whole bunch of paw paws up and tie the top and bottom of the mesh to the tree trunk. It also works well  for flying foxes, cockatoos and rats.  For a vegie garden bed, use plastic pipe to create an arched frame and cover it with netting.

·         Use a dead possum to deter others. Possums are  territorial animals  so will move out off someone else's territory. This strategy has worked amazingly well at our place. Possums were nesting in our mango tree and chewing all the mango flowers  so no fruit was setting. When we placed  a "road kill" possum, which we found on the street into the mango tree, the resident  possums moved out. For a couple of years we had plenty of mangoes.  After that, our old "mate" completely weathered away and the possums moved back. So we need to find another road kill one.

Double coke bottle protection

·         Avoid planting along a possum's "highway". Possums completely ate our passion fruit vine which we planted along a fence. They use fences to get around. When  we planted the passion fruit on the back wall of the house, the vine and fruit have not been touched.

·         Feed possums - become friends with them and they will not decimate your garden. A banana or an apple every day away from your garden produce will keep them happy and well fed so they will not need to eat what your garden produces. Bear in mind they need to eat something - human beings are actually pests in their territory.

Chicken wire protection

·         Use trees as a  climbing trellis  for passion fruit vines.  When higher up, no one can climb up the trees except possums. So the deal at our place is: possums can eat all they want on the trees but do not come down to the garden. And the result? As they try to eat passion fruit off a vine they shake some down. Every morning we pick about five passion fruit off the ground of which about one has been eaten. What a deal J

Our little possum Lada enjoying paw paw