Squirrels want to eat your pumpkins. You can stop them.

Gaping flesh wounds, guts festooned across a stoop. These common Spooky Season sights represent an epic battle between squirrels and pumpkin-havers over the fate of the festive gourd. Each October, critters turn lovingly selected pumpkins from seasonal decor to seasonal snack.

Sisters Jackie Paszinski and Nicki Wszelaki co-founded Piled Pumpkins, a pumpkin delivery and design service in northern New Jersey. The “number one question” customers ask is how to keep animals, squirrels and chipmunks especially, away from their carefully curated displays, Wszelaki said.

Here are suggestions from pumpkin display experts for how to make your gourds less appealing to squirrels. The good news is that you likely already have many of the ingredients you need.

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