How to Possum-Proof Your Vegetable Beds

Gardening with possums, not against them

If you garden near bushland, a creek line, a golf course or an older street with big trees, you are gardening with possums. Brushtails and ringtails were using that patch long before the vegetable beds arrived, and they are not going to leave. The aim is not to move them on. It is to put a proper barrier between them and the beds you want to keep, and to let them carry on using the rest of the garden.

Exclusion is the only approach that reliably works, and it never involves trapping or handling a protected animal. Done properly it keeps out birds, cats and the white butterflies that lay their eggs on your brassicas, so one job covers several problems at once.

Possums are protected native wildlife

Brushtail and ringtail possums are protected native animals right across Australia: under the Wildlife Act 1975 in Victoria, the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016 in New South Wales, the Nature Conservation Act 1992 in Queensland, and equivalent laws in the other states and territories. In Tasmania the brushtail is classed as partly protected wildlife, but a permit is still needed to trap one. The western ringtail possum of south west Western Australia is listed as critically endangered. Catching, harming or moving a possum is tightly regulated everywhere, the penalties are substantial, and in Victoria releasing a possum away from where it was caught is prohibited, because an animal put down in unfamiliar territory usually does not survive it. Nothing in this guide involves handling a possum. If one is living in your roof, that is a job for your state wildlife authority or a licensed wildlife controller, not a garden fix.

Wildlife safe netting, and why the mesh size matters

Netting is the answer, but only the right netting. Loose, wide mesh netting draped over a tree or a bed catches possums, flying foxes, birds, blue tongue lizards and snakes, and they usually die in it. Since 1 September 2021 the Victorian Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Regulations have required that netting used or sold for household fruit trees, vegetable gardens and berry bushes has a mesh no larger than 5mm by 5mm at full stretch, and fines apply for both using and selling netting that does not meet it. The Australian Capital Territory brought in a comparable ban on wildlife unsafe backyard fruit netting in 2024, and wildlife rescue groups in New South Wales ask gardeners to use the same 5mm standard. Agriculture Victoria publishes the current rules.

What to look for, and how to hang it:

• Mesh no larger than 5mm by 5mm with the net pulled taut. The quick check in the shop is the finger test: if you can poke a finger through a hole, the mesh is too big.
• White or pale netting rather than black, because animals can see it at night and avoid it.
• Strands thicker than about 500 microns, so the netting cannot cut into an animal that does touch it.
• Strung tight over hoops or a timber frame, never draped straight onto the plants. A sagging net is a trap, and it is the sag that does the damage.
• Closed at ground level with tent pegs, a length of timber or a weighted edge, so nothing can work its way underneath.
• Checked every day, and again after strong wind. If an animal is caught, do not try to pull it free: ring a wildlife rescue service.

That 5mm mesh does a second job at no extra cost. It is fine enough to stop cabbage white butterflies (Pieris rapae) laying on your cabbages and other brassicas, so the caterpillars never turn up in the first place.

Netting a raised bed

Many raised beds are built with holes or brackets in the side rails that take a length of irrigation pipe, and that is the easiest frame there is. Push a pipe into the socket on one side, bend it over and push the other end into the socket opposite, then repeat every 600mm to 900mm along the bed. Colorbond and timber beds without sockets take the same arches: fix a short bracket to the outside of each rail with screws and slide the pipe into that.

Once the arches are up, run the netting over them, pull it tight and close the ends. A neat way to hold it is to cut spare irrigation pipe into 100mm lengths and slit each one down the side. The offcut springs open, wraps over the net and clips onto the arch underneath, and it comes off in a second at harvest time. The same arches will carry a sprinkler line, or a length of shadecloth in summer, which makes the frame worth building even in a garden with no possums.

Netting an in ground bed

If you garden straight into the soil or run a no dig bed, build a light box frame to sit over the top instead. Four lengths of timber for the base, four uprights and a top frame will do it, sized so you can still reach the middle. Staple the netting to the outside of the frame, keeping it tight as you go, and make one side a lift off panel or a hinged lid for picking.

Rain and light pass straight through 5mm mesh, so the frame can stay on all season. In a windy spot, or where the local possums have worked out how to lever things, peg the frame to the ground at each corner. Lift it rather than drag it, or the netting snags and tears.

Sprays and repellents

There are plenty of home recipes online for chilli or garlic based sprays, and gardeners do report that they put possums off for a while. They wash away in the first rain, they need reapplying constantly, and anything you put on a leaf is something you then have to wash off before eating it. Commercial possum repellents registered with the APVMA also exist. If you use one, use an APVMA registered product for that pest, exactly as the label says, and observe the withholding period before picking.

Either way, treat a repellent as a top up to netting rather than a substitute for it. A hungry possum that has found a bed of soft new growth can work around a smell. It will not work around 5mm mesh on a taut frame.

Sharing the rest of the garden

A resident possum is not the worst neighbour to have. Brushtails are territorial, so the one living in your street tree is also keeping other possums out, and a garden with a settled population is usually calmer than one where animals are constantly moving through. Net the beds that matter to you, leave the rest of the garden open, and the arrangement tends to hold.

It helps to keep a few things they can have. Possums will strip soft new leafy greens and young shoots first, so the tender crops are the ones that belong under the net, while sturdier plants further out can take the odd visit. And when one does find a gap and take a tomato, it is usually a sign to check the edges of the netting rather than to start a war.

Related growing guides

• Keeping possums, birds and pests out of the veggie patch, humanely
• Deterring Cats and Birds from Garden Beds, Humanely
• Cabbage White and Diamondback Caterpillars: Protecting Your Brassicas

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