Plant 2 of everything. One for the raccoon. One for you.
I’m probably being wooshed here, but you do know that those electric dog fences rely on the dog wearing a collar that shocks them when they go over the fence, right? Catching the raccoon to put the collar on would be quite an adventure, I’m sure. I guess you could use the type of electric fence they use along the top of cow fences, but you might end up shocking yourself as much as the raccoon.
I think I’d try getting a large shaker of cayenne pepper to season the plants with. If it doesn’t work you haven’t invested much time or money.
They have possums in Ireland?
Won’t work, raccoons are pretty picky for buggers that root through garbage. They’ll pluck one 95% ripe tomato, take two bites, then decide the tomatoes on the other plant look better and will have a taste of them too, my father used to find multiple barely eaten stuff in his garden all the time.
You can try to cage the tomato. 6" square concrete reinforcing wire grid around and over the top, affix it to something sturdy so the raccoon can’t pull it over or crawl under.
No, they’re just a transformer, wire and insulators you attach to poles. Mrs. Plant was loaned one by a neighbor/fellow dog person, but we never used it. My theory being that it is easy to put up and designed for dog sized creatures.
Of course, it may just piss off the raccoon and get you in worse than you are now. 
The easiest way to get a raccoon or other pest out of the hav-a-hart is to tie a rope to the handle then toss it into a convenient pond or lake for 10 minutes. Especially if you live in a state where catch and relocate is illegal.
You want to be careful with this; there’s some possibility you’ll get dinged for animal cruelty for not killing the animal in a humane fashion. I’ve read news stories in the past in which folks who drowned animals faced felony charges, I believe.
Daniel
Cool.
I don’t know I had a motion activated double-floodlight on my back deck, and the raccoons didn’t even blink when it switched on.
How about using an airsoft (BB) gun rather than a real gun? An interested person with explosives experience could probably make you some BB Claymores. (Hi Steve!)
Well, it’s what my town’s animal control officer and a board of health member both suggested my neighbors and I do about squirrels, so I’m pretty sure I’m in the clear legally.
Surely shooting raccoons in a residential area is illegal in most places?? I know the police certainly came quickly enough when I called about the neighbor who shot the muskrat to inform him that was not cool. Aside from my general objections to animal cruelty, I sure don’t want guns being fired in the neighborhood.
Hu. I’ve never heard of such a thing. When I googled “electric dog fence” all I got were the kind I described which require a collar to implement the shock. We had such a “fence” for a while when we lived in the country. One of our dogs wouldn’t get anywhere near it; the other decided that the shock wasn’t all that bad and ignored it.
This like many other things depends on where you live. Where I work, very illegal. Where I currently live, not so much.
I tried the air soft gun myself although I never thought of the claymore aspect. The “full auto” mode on the gun sent about 15 small plastic BBs at the raccoon in about 3 seconds. (give or take) His reaction… none what so ever. My reaction… This is a really bad idea to be this close to a raccoon and shooting at it with a non-lethal toy.
And to the shooting with a real gun thoughts. Im a range certified firearms expert and shooting any firearm in a residential area, legal or not, is a very bad idea. Bullets are unpredictable especially when hitting something asymmetrical like a raccoon or even a nail in the decking. Please don’t take the chance of hurting yourself or someone else.
If you are in a rural area where you can be a proper distance from the raccoon and know with certainty that there is no chance of anyone being anywhere within range of a ricochet then no problem but otherwise don’t do it. The cost of replacing tomatoes is far less than a lawsuit from a neighbor or a glass eye for yourself.
Actually, either spelling is accepted.
I once put a .22 LR into the ground in front of a big raccoon-bigger than a Shetland sheepdog-and he just glared at me.
Snopes failed me, but I think this ricochet off the skull idea is an urban legend.
I’ve put down more than a couple of hurt animals in my time and I can tell you it is not. At least the skull may divert the path of the bullet enough to keep it from being a killing shot in an animal with a much smaller brain. It may be a killing shot but it is a slow death sometimes. Center of the chest seems to work much better and quicker. It’s embarrassing to come in and tell everyone it took five shots to put down a deer from a foot away.
I know all this shooting talk is straying from the OP but keep in mind the dangers of shooting at close range. Even if the bullet does not bounce of the raccoons head it could just as easily pass through the raccoon and bounce of something else on your deck. Or worse someone else in the near vicinity. Again I would stress this is not a good option unless you have a go amount of distance between you and the raccoon and there is no one potentially within the line of ricochet.
I think the moral of the story is shoot raccoons with frangible ammo only!
Lead-free, environmentally friendly and great fun for the kids!!!