How to Keep Badgers and Foxes from Digging Up Your Garden

It’s a classic scene: you wake up to find freshly turned earth, holes, and disturbed plants where your prized crops once stood. Badgers and foxes, while fascinating and part of our garden’s natural ecosystem, can cause quite a bit of digging damage. Here’s how to keep these nocturnal visitors from turning our gardens into their playgrounds, without harming them.

Understand Their Motivation

Badgers dig mainly to find earthworms and grubs, while foxes might be after rodents or just marking territory. Knowing what attracts them helps us tailor our garden defence. Areas with rich soil and lots of insects are magnets.

Secure Your Compost and Waste

Compost heaps can attract badgers and foxes searching for tasty scraps. You use sealed compost bins and avoid putting meat or dairy waste in the garden compost to reduce the appeal.

Use Physical Barriers

Strong fencing is often the best deterrent. We install wire mesh fences around vulnerable beds at least 1.2 metres high, buried 20cm underground to prevent digging under.

Electric fences are effective but not always practical for home gardens. Solid barriers around smaller beds or raised planters also help.

Remove Easy Food Sources

Bird feeders can attract foxes searching for fallen seeds, while pet food left outside is a red carpet invitation. We keep feeders over trays to catch dropped seed and bring pet bowls indoors at night.

Try Natural Deterrents

Foxes and badgers dislike strong smells. Try scattering crushed garlic, human hair clippings, or commercially available predator repellents around garden edges. Motion-activated lights and sprinklers can startle them too, encouraging them to move on.

Encourage Wildlife-Friendly Habitat Away from the Garden

Creating a wild area away from the veg beds can draw badgers and foxes away from the main garden. Plant dense shrubs or leave a patch of natural woodland edge nearby as an alternative habitat.

Regularly Inspect and Repair

Badgers and foxes are persistent. We check fences and barriers regularly for holes or weaknesses, repairing any damage quickly to keep the garden secure.

Badgers and foxes are part of our countryside charm, but we don’t have to let them wreck our hard work. With the right combination of fencing, habitat management, and deterrents, we protect our garden while respecting wildlife.