Here in our province of Alessandria, in recent years we've been seeing wild boar herds coming down from the hills more and more often, rummaging through our gardens. Last year they destroyed everything we'd planted. We don't know what to do anymore, we've already tried nets but they just break through them anyway. Is it normal for them to increase so much or is there something specific attracting them?
Don't leave food lying around, not even garden scraps - that's what attracts them most. And don't try to scare them off with sudden noises or lights thinking it'll work: they get used to it fast and everything goes back to how it was.
The problem is that wild boars have multiplied quite a lot over the past few years, especially in the north. They don't have many natural predators, food has become easier to find in inhabited areas compared to forests, and there are fewer hunters than there used to be. When a family finds an orchard full of vegetables, they always come back because they know it's a reliable food source. If you start growing again, you'll need to think about serious fencing - not regular netting, but actual barriers at least a meter and a half high, and that go underground because they don't climb easily but they do try to dig underneath.
The real solution though isn't at the individual garden level. Something needs to happen at the provincial or regional level with authorized hunters, because population control only works if it's coordinated across large areas. Talk to your local council or other farmers in the area - maybe they're already thinking about collective solutions. In the meantime, the only thing that really discourages them is making yourselves less appealing than the woods.
They're not coming closer recently, it's that over the last twenty years the wild boar population has exploded all across Italy and now they're everywhere. The problem is they find easy food in vegetable gardens and garbage, so they have no reason to stay away from houses - it's less work for them to dig around your place than to search for roots and acorns in the mountains. Fencing might work if it's tall enough and properly tensioned (at least a meter and a half), but the real solution is to make yourself less interesting: no compost lying around, organic waste in sealed containers, and maybe coordinate with your neighbors since if one garden is protected and the others aren't, they'll concentrate where it's easy. If they keep being a serious problem, contact the provincial authorities - they have specific protocols for this kind of situation.
Wild boars come down because your garden is basically a feast for them - tender vegetables, roots that are easy to dig up, everything they struggle to find in the mountains with the same concentration. At my place they knocked down an entire wooden fence looking for potatoes we'd planted underneath, and the thing is once they discover a spot where they eat well they come back systematically until they've cleaned it out completely.
The real issue is that wild boars breed like crazy and they've got almost no natural predators left, so the population pressure on the hillside becomes unbearable and they simply expand into inhabited areas where food is guaranteed. If you actually want to have any shot at protecting your garden, a single fence won't cut it - you need very deep enclosures (boars dig quite a bit underneath) and especially constant vigilance, because the moment they find a weak spot they'll exploit it to death.
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