How to Keep Rats Out of the Garden: 15 Ways

Rats are a nuisance in the garden. They damage plants, leave droppings, and carry diseases. But there are many simple, inexpensive DIY strategies to help you learn how to keep rats out of the garden.

Add Repellant Plants

Intersperse your garden with plants that repel rats or create a perimeter of repellant plants. Rats don’t like plants with strong smells, like:

• Basil
• Black pepper
• Cayenne
• Citronella
• Mint
• Oregano
• Peppermint
• Rosemary
• Sage
• Sagebrush
• Spearmint

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Remove Attractive Plants

While you may not want to eliminate all plants that attract rats, it’s good to be aware of plants that rats love as food sources or shelter. 

Rats love to eat fruit and citrus trees such as orange, lime, peach, and plum. They are attracted to seeds and to nuts in the shell.

Eliminate these plants from your garden, if possible. Another strategy is to add plants that rats find attractive—but plant them well away from the garden and house to draw the rats away.

Manage Compost

Rats are drawn to compost piles. Piles contain easily accessible fresh food sources that rats find especially attractive.

Do not compost meat, seafood, bones, dairy (milk, sour cream, yogurt), and pet excrement—all rich food sources that rats will feast on. Shift fresh compost materials to the middle of the pile. Use a contained tumbler-style compost bin to lock rats out of the compost.

Harvest on Schedule

Garden fruits and vegetables attract rats. Ripe fruits and veggies—especially those that fall to the ground—are even more attractive.

Harvest your garden’s fruit and vegetables when they are ripe. Learn the harvest schedule for all garden items. Harvest periods vary widely. Asparagus is harvested in early spring, while fall vegetables are harvested several months later, right before the first frost.

Remove Pet Food

Food left outdoors for dogs and cats is a savory draw for rats. Feed your pets indoors whenever possible.

If you do feed the pets outdoors, bring in the food bowls (including the water) when they are done eating. Explore dog food storage ideas like steel trash cans that protect the food from rats. Avoid plastic containers, as rats can gnaw through them.

Add Pungent Items

Rats don’t like pungent items, so place a few odorous items in or around the garden to deter them:

• Cut-up onions
• Moth repellents, like mothballs
• Cayenne pepper
• Peppermint or eucalyptus oil smeared on solid items
• Cotton balls soaked in vinegar or clove oil

Remove Bird Food

Bird seed and hummingbird nectar are enticing, convenient food sources for rats. Remove the food to repel the rats.

Fill bird feeders with only the minimum amount of food for the birds each day. Do not leave the food overnight. Place the feeders at least 4 feet high and 8 feet away from jumping-off points like fences, shed roofs, and tree branches.

Place the hummingbird feeder high and out of reach of rats or remove it from the garden altogether.

Introduce Cats

Rats are built for survival, so they avoid predators. Cats are natural predators of rats. 

Cats locate rats by their high-pitched squeaks. They may follow through by scaring away, impairing, or killing the rats. Unless your house cat is up to the job, contact your local non-profit feral cat organization about hosting cats in your neighborhood. 

Use Ratters

While cats hunt rats, some types of dogs do a better job. They even have an official name: ratter.

Ratters, especially those in the terrier group, are friendly and loving to humans but vicious to rats and mice. Ratters to consider:

• Cairn terrier
• Dachshund
• German pinscher
• Jack Russell terrier
• Miniature schnauzer
• Rat terrier
• West Highland white terrier
• Yorkshire terrier

Remove Snakes

Rats treat some snakes as prey. So, if your garden has snakes, eliminate the snakes in order to get rid of the rats.

Keep snakes out of your yard and garden by eliminating standing water, erecting a snake- and rodent-proof fence, removing hiding areas like logs and rocks, and trimming excess foliage.

Install Catch Traps

Catch rats alive in a cage and later release them far from the garden. 

The best rat traps for humanely stopping rats are live catch traps. These are large wire cages with doors that snap shut once the rat has entered. Unlike poison, you’ll have no dead rats decaying in the garden or in the walls of the house. Release the live rats safely far from the garden.

Set Snap Traps

Snap rat traps quickly close on the rat, sometimes immobilizing it live but usually killing it. 

Use spring-loaded wood or plastic snap traps baited with dried fruit, nuts, pet food, or peanut butter. Place the rat traps in areas of rat traffic known as runways and angle them perpendicular to the runways.

Build a Fence

Once rats have been eliminated, erect a rodent-barrier fence around the garden. This will prevent most, if not all, rats from entering the garden.

Install an 18-inch-high fence around the garden, with the lower section buried 6 inches or more. Use 1/4-inch hardwire cloth (wire mesh) in 16- or 19-gauge stainless steel.

For large or aggressive rats, use 28-gauge diamond-shaped expanded metal mesh. Stake every 12 to 24 inches.

Manage Chicken Coops

Chicken coops found in residential backyards contain plenty of items that attract rats: droppings, chicken feed, and even the chickens. Clean and fortify chicken coops to deter the rats.

Keep the chickens safe by covering openings with 1/4-inch-opening hardware cloth (wire mesh) fence. Build a safety fence around the coop with hardware cloth rather than chicken wire. Seal openings in the chicken coop, and keep the chicken feed within the enclosure.

Add Electronic Repellers

Rats may be repelled by high-pitched ultrasonic sounds. By creating a consistent ultrasonic sound in the garden, rats might avoid the area.

Electronic ultrasonic pest repellers won’t get rid of rats alone. But they can form one part of a larger pest elimination strategy. It’s often worth adding a few inexpensive solar-powered pest repellers around the garden to make the garden less appealing to rats.

10 Things to Remove to Get Rid of Rats

Numerous items can be removed from the garden to get rid of rats. But removing these items is a quick-start method of fixing the problem:

• Barbecue waste
• Dead animals
• Fruit (fallen)
• Hiding places, like piles of rocks and lumber
• Nuts
• Pet food
• Pet waste
• Seeds
• Sheltering groundcover
• Water (on the ground or in pools)