Hello! I live in NYC and have a small backyard vegetable garden, including tomatoes. Last summer we discovered that we have a family of opossums living under a part of the house. This isn't ideal for many reasons but most upsetting to me, they totally decimated by tomatoes last year. There were 3-4 babies and they ate almost every ripe tomato right off the plant.

We're attempting to work with our landlord to evict the opossum(s) but they're not super motivated (the landlord not the opossums). Does anyone have experience keeping opossums or other animals away from vegetables? I plant everything in grow bags so they're slightly elevated but still on the ground. I'm concerned that chickenwire would inhibit the growth of the plant too much and other scent-based deterrents didn't work at all last year.

If anyone has dealt with anything similar I'd love to know what you tried. Thanks!

Hi UrbanGardenerNYC and welcome

Short of getting rid of the opossums, you are going to continue to have problems. They can climb fences and dig under them as well. Here we really don't have problems with opossums, but we do have problems with groundhogs. We keep our gardens protected with 4' high welded wire fencing. We do not stretch it tight, but leave enough play in it so if the groundhog starts to climb, the top of the fence will waver back and forth. They don't like it. We also attach a 2' piece of fence to the bottom that extends away from the garden. That keeps them from digging. You could try that, but it sounds like you may be growing on concrete(?) since you are using grow bags and you are in NYC.

Welcome @UrbanGardenerNYC ! I joined National Gardening Association a little over a year ago, and it has been a wealth of information and inspiration for me in my gardening journey. I so relate to your opossum problem, as we have to wrangle with deer, rabbits, raccoons, and ground hogs, as well as opossums. I even once found a 200-pound sow pig in my blueberry garden! A few years back, I was told by a wise older local woman a Native American saying, "When planting your garden, plant 4 seeds: One for the deer, one for the crow, one for the hornworm, and one to grow." In other words, in this natural world of ours, we need to plan to share. That being said, you shouldn't lose your whole tomato crop to opossums - they do not share nicely.

When I was struggling with a family of ground hogs, I tried a wildlife trap. I never trapped a ground hog, but I caught opossums. If your landlord won't deal with them, you can try the trap yourself, but you need to have a means and a place to transfer the trapped animal to, and I suspect that is very complicated in NYC. I finally got rid of the ground hogs by clearing out the underbrush in their den area, and they moved someplace friendlier. Perhaps you can put the chicken wire around the base of the house so they can't get in there? Of course, you don't want to cage them into that space either.

While I was having the ground hog problem, I used a 3-ft tall wobbly chicken wire fence around the garden plants, wrapping 10 inches of the fencing on top of the ground to prevent digging. Still I found a desperate ground hog inside the fence (he got out on his own).

Now I have pursued a new strategy - I provide the critters an easier source of food than fighting with the fences around my garden. I put fruit and veg scraps on the compost pile, and that keeps them happy. I have one possum very protective of that territory, and he doesn't let others come around. However, I don't think this is a good approach in NYC - too many critters and not enough space.

Opossums are not good at climbing smooth vertical objects. Can you put your grow bags in a pot on top of a smooth steel trash can turned upside down? The raccoons could still climb up (nothing short of an electric fence stops them), but the opossums would struggle.

Btw, here is a photo of my critters. The coon is cute; the possum not so much.

Lori. I like your idea of "sharing" some food in the way of fruit and vegetable scraps on your compost pile. Here in PA, we are always dealing with groundhogs, chipmunks, deer, raccoons, black bears, etc. We are starting a new food forest of 8000 square feet. Right now, we have all the small fruit trees and berry bushes enclosed with wire cages, but that will not do in the long run. We will be running a welded wire fence around the area this spring, and then electric wiring 4 inches out beyond that, otherwise as the plants mature, our food forest will become an animal buffet!

Hi Urban....My problem is rabbits, the ate everything in the veggie garden except cukes & squash.....I'm sorry your repellents didn't work last year...I have bought 3 different types for this year & am hoping one of them works! If so, I'll post it....

Hi @RobinD, I too have struggled with rabbits. One year they ate every seedling, from beans to cucumbers to sunflowers. I found that a 2-foot chicken wire fence around the perimeter of the garden worked well. I folded about 6-inches of the fence on the ground and weighted it will large rocks. Veggies were saved! However, my pansies were first-choice on the rabbit buffet this winter! As soon as the clover starts growing into the lawn in a few weeks, that will be where I find the rabbit.

Thanks to everyone who shared ideas! Seems it's a relatable struggle. We definitely want to relocate our opossum friend elsewhere, so that will be the goal for sure. If that doesn't happen I'm going to try some chickenwire fencing to see what that does and will give the repellent another try this year.

I use grow bags because the soil where I am has a lot of heavy metals and for things we're going to eat it's recommended to not grow in the ground, though we do have a yard.

Thanks, Lori....my garden is fenced, but I have 2 gates going into & out of the garden area & the bunnies are going under the fence.....I guess I could extend the chicken wire lower, but I do want to be able to open the gates....plus, my flowers are not fenced & they eat many of my flowers! I have a standard poodle that chases them, but she has never caught one yet.....

I've seen racoons, rats, snakes and even lizards in my backyard but the only damage is new bulbs being dug out of the ground. It's maddening sometimes they're not even eaten.

Bulbs may be poisonous, so they critters don't eat them.....