Rats are often drawn to gardens because they provide everything these rodents need to survive — food, water, and shelter. Fallen fruit, vegetable patches, compost bins, and bird feeders are easy food sources, while dense shrubs, sheds, and wood piles offer safe hiding spots.

A garden can quickly become an inviting habitat for rats if the conditions are right, making it important for homeowners to understand what attracts them and how to keep these unwelcome visitors away. These troublesome rodents pose a threat to your garden's beauty as they devour your plants and scatter droppings throughout. Moreover, these creatures also harbour illnesses such as leptospirosis, salmonella, and hantavirus and can reproduce at an alarming rate.

Therefore, if you spot any rodents in your garden, you must act quickly to eradicate them.

Specialists at Epic Gardening and Buzz Boss both champion one particular deterrent for tackling rats: onions.

Lorin Mielsen at Epic Gardening observed how onions possess a sharp scent and that rats "hate them". Furthermore, you don't even need to cultivate them for this method to be effective.

Simply position an onion where you believe the rats are gaining access, and "they will take one smell and run out of your garden".

With this technique, it's crucial to replace the onion every few days, or it will decompose.

As an alternative, think about planting garlic around the perimeter of your garden beds.

This approach tends to ward off numerous pests, not merely rodents.

The experts at Buzz Boss declared that onions are a "cooking staple that's a nemesis of rats".

They explained: "It's a powerful rat repellent because of its pungent smell and taste. Onion contains sulphur compounds that irritate the eyes and nose (of rats, too) and allicin, which can cause anaemia and oxygen deprivation in rats if ingested."

However, the experts at Buzz Boss suggest cultivating onions in your garden to ensure a plentiful supply.

Onions are a cool-season crop that can be propagated from seeds, sets, or transplants. They thrive in full sunlight and rich, moist soil.

Harvesting can take place once the bulbs have fully developed and the tops begin to yellow and topple over.