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themastergardener1

Keeping deer away

TheMasterGardener1
12 years ago

How do you keep deer and other animals out of your garden without using a fence. Does the pepper solutions work well?

Has anyone had results with egg spray?

Any other methods? I would like to know. Thanks.

Comments (16)

  • Kimmsr
    12 years ago

    I don't seem to have a problen with deer, turkeys yes. Much of what I read indicates the commercial repellents are not very good, and one article some time back indicated a gardener needed to switch products periodically. However, in looking for that article I found the one linked below that may be of some help.

    Here is a link that might be useful: Deer repellent

  • pnbrown
    12 years ago

    Nothing has worked for me or anyone else I know, other than high strong fence. I'm getting set to enfence an acre by springtime.

  • oldmainer
    12 years ago

    I agree with the above about fencing. I have been gardening for many years and tried many products and found they don't work all that well or for long. One bambi...or a bunch of them will wreck your garden in one night so go with a good fence. I use the seven foot tall plastic deer fence and havn't had a bambi jump it yet. Franklin

  • TheMasterGardener1
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Last year I got away with out my peppers getting eaten. I used a little liquid fence but not much. I hope I am as lucky this year because I want to make more rows of peppers, I just hope the one year I deside to make a larger garden isn't when they deside attack!!

    I planted the peppers last year just thinking they wher going to be eaten but they never did. I hope its not the other way around. The area I am making this garden is in an area I cant make fence so I hope I find something, thanks everyone.

    Thanks Kimmsr for the link.

  • robertz6
    12 years ago

    This past year was the first time deer consumed parts of my tomatoes. When the top 1/3 of a three foot plant is eaten, not too hard to figure out what size animal did it.

    On another thread, a VHS tape 'fence' was suggested, and I tried it. It seemed to work fairly well. Stakes about three foot high were placed around the tomato area, and two strands of VHS video tape were wrapped around the stakes. The deer repelent is said to come from the movement of the tape, and reflections off it.

  • ralleia
    12 years ago

    Anything that I used to try to repel the deer (human hair, Irish Spring soap, disgustingly-strong perfumes, grape kool-aid) failed miserably and resulted in browsed plants. Once the damage is done, it can be difficult to recover.

    Like the posters above have said, some form of fencing is a necessity.

    Deer have never went after my pepper plants--tomatoes yes, and their favorites in my garden are cucumbers, green beans, and peas.

    However, even a rudimentary fencelike barrier kept those around my property out. For impromptu barriers I've used extra concrete reinforcing mesh to cage them out, or plastic-covered wire mesh (5' tall) wrapped into a quick fence all around some T-posts for my cucumbers and beans.

    In small areas, even 4' tall chicken wires are effective (as long as they haven't already learned about the delicacies inside the fence. Deer don't like to go into small areas, so my chicken wire around my cramped 5' wide x 20' long of garden beds has kept them out.

  • nandina
    12 years ago

    Temporary solar electric fencing. Two strands set at 1' and 3' for vegetable gardens or permanent electric fencing if needed for the whole yard. Also, unrolling and pegging down long lengths of chicken wire on the ground along inside edge of gardens, scrunching it up a bit here and there is a very effective deterrent. Animals will not walk on it.

  • terrene
    12 years ago

    I get a little deer browsing in back, enough that it's annoying, but not too much to ruin the whole garden. Last year I built a 25-foot long, 7 foot high natural wood trellis in the back garden and planted it with Morning glories, Cardinal climber, etc which the deer thought was their own personal buffet! TWICE they ate the vines down, and I tried "Deer Off" which works okay but is expensive and a bit of a pain to apply.

    I sometimes collect rolls of old wire fencing, my favorite fencing is 4 foot high with 2x4 inch grids. So just as Nandina describes I laid down 30 feet of this fencing flat on the ground along the back and sides of the trellis where the deer liked to wander thru. The fencing is used, so it's not perfectly flat and kind of "lumpy" on the ground. The result - the deer would not walk over it, and no more damage to the vines! They actually recovered and flowered kind of nicely. Yippee!

    Here are the culprits -
    {{gwi:161328}}

  • david52 Zone 6
    12 years ago

    Putting up an 8 foot high fence with a gate is the best solution.

    The Colorado Division of Wildlife recommends a simple and inexpensive deer spray that does work, as long as you remember to apply it regularly.

    Using a blender or food processor, whir up one raw egg and one teaspoon of dried chicken bouillon in water. Run through fine-mesh strainer, put in sprayer, dilute to one gallon, and spray away. This works very well if you remember to spray often enough, an issue in spring when the growth is at its fastest, and after a rain.

    Remember to strain it, otherwise the sprayer will clog.

  • bi11me
    12 years ago

    I have often heard that laying fencing horizontally on the outside of a vertical fence is very effective. I invite hunters, in season, and because mine is a commercial operation, I am permitted to kill deer if they are in my crops, but in all the years I've gardened they have never been a serious issue for me. I've lost an entire crop of grapes to turkeys in one night, and had a blundering moose do a lot of damage, but it's mostly bugs 'n' slugs that I'm fighting. My favorite visitor is a bobcat that I see a few times a year at most, and foxes are welcome too.

  • kqcrna
    12 years ago

    I seem to have a lot of deer roaming around suburbia this year. My beds are covered with tracks.

    I've had good results with Liquid Fence in past years, as long as I spray regularly. It's organic, made of rotten eggs. It's the worst smelling material on earth, I'm convinced.

    Karen

  • TheMasterGardener1
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    "I've had good results with Liquid Fence in past years, as long as I spray regularly. It's organic, made of rotten eggs. It's the worst smelling material on earth, I'm convinced. "

    Thank you for this. It is what I was going to use this year.

  • ga_karen
    12 years ago

    I do something a bit unique....I hang old CDs (or blank new ones)from 25 lb. test fishing line with a #5 swivel in it....I hang 2 together, one below the other one and each has a swivel. There are also 2 back to back at each level so both sides are shiney. I generally hang them in trees and the deer shy away from them at night due to the flashes that are reflected from my neighbor's night lights.
    When I put some in an area with no light source, I purchased those cheap solar walkway lights to scatter around or the solar, color changing garden lights...they work fine. I got the cheap walkway lights at Walmart & the color changing ones at Harbor Freight.
    Works for me! But I like that fence laying on the ground idea too!

  • robertz6
    12 years ago

    Maybe we should do what folks did 300 years ago and sleep outside on the ground! Or thirty years ago -- make the dog sleep outside. Put the doghouse right next to the garden.

  • david52 Zone 6
    12 years ago

    One thing to remember is that the deer population in North America is now likely the highest its ever been. The animals adapt very well to the forest/brush/open ground interface - or the ecosystem that now predominates so much of the country, its a perfect environment for them. Add on strict hunting seasons and far too many screenings of Bambi to young kids who burst into tears when Daddy heaves a brick at the deer who just ate the roses. There are now so many deer that in many areas, they are eating the young sapling trees, messing with the over-all forest ecology.

    I have, right now, a dozen mule deer that are jumping through gaps in my deer fence every night and tearing up the flower beds after the new growth under the snow. They regularly get hit with a pellet gun, but they just come back an hour later.

    /$$@@!#!^^& rats with hooves