I love my deer but…..

They chomp my garden down to nothing!  This year I am planting in a bed I have not used in a while and I have not gotten around to putting up a fence around it yet.  So the deer have won round 1

But summer officially started today/we had our last day at school so I think the first big project I will tackle will be putting a fence around my garden bed.

I still love my deer, I want them to be at home on my property, I just don’t want them to eat out of the garden—I have way to much long grass for them to eat!

Eric

Eric Hanson wrote:They chomp my garden down to nothing!  This year I am planting in a bed I have not used in a while and I have not gotten around to putting up a fence around it yet.  So the deer have won round 1

But summer officially started today/we had our last day at school so I think the first big project I will tackle will be putting a fence around my garden bed.

I still love my deer, I want them to be at home on my property, I just don’t want them to eat out of the garden—I have way to much long grass for them to eat!

Eric

Same.  The deer decimate my trees.  I put in two new bubble gum plum trees a few weeks ago.  They are eaten nearly to death.  Happens constantly.

Eric, I am sure the deer love you too.  If they could I bet the deer would say "Thank you".

While I can't say it would work for you though I put up a string fence that kept the deer out until someone moved the golf cart I was using as a post.

Just one long string and I think it was kite string.

Butter, salt, pepper and a bit of thyme...
Oh and you'll still need a fence.

Anne, I think that’s a brilliantly simple idea!  The only part I don’t like is that I didn’t think of it myself.

Great Idea!

Eric

1. Sepp Holzer's bone broth is supposed to work, but you need two matching, cast iron pots to make it, which I have yet to acquire.
2. If you fence with something that's borderline, but the deer have other things outside the garden to eat, putting clumps of male dog fur at nose height, seems to help. You have to refresh it at least once per year to keep the "dog stink" predator smell. You also need to have, or know someone, with a male dog. My current source is an elderly poodle who needs occasional pruning. (Yeah, yeah, his owner calls it "grooming".) Not sure where I'll source it when he's gone.
3. A fence that goes "up" and then "out" so it has width as well as height, also comes highly recommended.
4. Putting a border of stuff they don't like along the edge of the fencing to suggest to them, nothing good in this neighborhood. They don't seem to like comfrey. I haven't noticed them eating Burdock. They haven't touched my Iris, including the flowers. I'm sure there are lists places, but most of the time, this approach only works if they have other things they like better. I suppose that's why some people choose a spot far away from their garden to plant a "deer garden". That smacks of "feeding wild animals" to me. Mind you, I let them eat my wind-fall apples so I better not throw stones...

All that said, there are things deer *really* like, and times of the year, when they struggle to find food, and if they decide they really want what's in your garden, they can be incredibly sneaky (going UNDER my friend's fence when he thought he'd gone "tall enough"), and are experienced with breaking cheap fencing, and seem perfectly capable of finding the weak spot.

Jay, it’s interesting that you mentioned comfrey.  I have 6 plants that in the past have grown bountiful and untouched by anything but this year they are stripped near bare!  Maybe I have wild goats in the region (just kidding)?

Eric

OK, long story short, I'm a librarian and a patron whom I know gardens (he sometimes brings in produce for us) checked a book out on hostas and I was like, "Oh cool, hostas. I wish you luck, the deer keep eating my mom's." He looks me dead in the eye and says "Mix a gallon of water with an egg and a drop of dish soap. Spray it on the hostas. The longer you egg rots the better."

So I do as I'm told and tell Mom about the mixture and she's frustrated enough to try it, and now my parents have hostas and even roses that have not been eaten. Every time we talk about gardening, now, Mom tells me to be sure to thank the patron next time I see him even though I've already thanked him, like, twice.

Caitlin Robbins wrote:"Oh cool, hostas. I wish you luck, the deer keep eating my mom's." He looks me dead in the eye and says "Mix a gallon of water with an egg and a drop of dish soap. Spray it on the hostas. The longer you egg rots the better."

Has anyone tried this on things rabbits are eating?

Jay Angler wrote: Has anyone tried this on things rabbits are eating?

My mom is currently using it on some greens that the rabbits tend to eat and so far so good. But the rabbits have never been as bad as the deer, so it could just be timing.

Eric, there's nothing better than going to bed at night not having to will the plants to be there the next morning.  A fence is well worth the effort and expense.

Some of the things I used to blame the deer for were actually being eaten by packrats and rabbits.  Both will climb trees and get up on surfaces to eat greenery.  I have the funniest video of a packrat trying to get up into a 3-foot high ceramic pot with flowers in it.  He ran up the pot next to it, did a 180 in the air, grabbed the rim of the tall pot, hauled itself up into the pot and had a feast.  Clever little devils.

In case anybody is interested, we did a chicken wire fence running a 4 foot roll of 1" holes horizontally on the bottom, using metal poles pounded in until they were 8 feet high, with the lower 6" of wire turned out on the ground so rabbits and packrats couldn't get in.  Then the top horizontal layer is the 1 1/2" construction wire they use for plastering.  It's heavier and lasts longer, and cheaper, strangely enough, but the rodents would get through it if it were on the bottom.  Then I run a line of brightly colored construction string across the top at the 8' level, since sometimes I can only get the 3-foot-wide construction wire, so it comes up a bit short.  The bright string lasts several years, and the birds and quail flocks can see it.  Oddly enough, with just silver wire at the top, 8 of them will make it over, and the last guy, Thwap! he bounces back on the ground.  But with the string they all make it.

The deer are clever, though, and if eventually the chicken wire rusts, they know to push through it.  It takes years, but mine has been up for 17 years, and no deer have jumped it.

America does not have a deer problem, we have a wolf and grizzly deficiency.

Ben Zumeta wrote:America does not have a deer problem, we have a wolf and grizzly deficiency.

You said it, Ben! And a mountain lion deficiency.

I admit I really wish more people in my area considered deer to be a renewable resource. If people would stop putting anything nasty on their grass/gardens, they'd even be an organic resource.

That said, they are both a blessing and a curse. New moms tend to "park" their fawns and go off to feed themselves. I totally considered it a blessing when one mom choose to do so by my comfrey patch that supports my espalier pear tree. At first I wasn't sure what I was seeing and had to really stop and focus to recognize it was a fawn. It was there for at least 3 hours.

If you're dealing with whitetail deer, and in Illinois I suspect you are, just talk to them in their own language.  When you chase the deer away they run off with their tail in the air.  That's an alarm to the deer.  When they see the underside of another deers tail it says to them there is danger here to be avoided.  So, make a white flag the size and shape of a deer tail and hang it by your garden.  After being told a few times, in their own language, that it's dangerous in your garden they will begin to avoid the area.

Caitlin Robbins wrote:

Ben Zumeta wrote:America does not have a deer problem, we have a wolf and grizzly deficiency.

You said it, Ben! And a mountain lion deficiency.

Indeed, and to modify one of Sepp Holzer's quotes, if we don't have those animals then "you must do the pig's wolf's work!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bc4GXVJB3WI

Thanks Caitlyn, I considered adding in mountain lions, wolverines, etc, but opted for brevity for once!

Along the lines of “doing the wolf’s work”, a Livestock Guardian Dog is essentially filling that niche so we don’t get an ecological wolf/coyote vacuum. An LGD will therefore also protect trees and gardens within their fenced area. When I took on the development of the Crescent City Food Forest, I had been failing to appreciate just how much my LGD Wilson was protecting my home garden as well as his birds. At the site without him we had so many more problem animals, including human thieves, that Wilson just prevented from ever showing up. I started bringing him to work with me once the fence was secured, and he happily went to work spreading deer repellant and putting the fear of Dog into gophers.

So I love the idea of a LGD.  The problem I have is that I have a lgd—that is a lazy guard dog.  Actually she really is no guard dog at all and is really only good for companionship.  She might occasionally bark at the deer but the deer learned long ago that she means them absolutely no harm and are therefore in no hurry to get out of the way.

Eric

We are on 30 acres in middle of Missouri woods- lots of deer  come  to visit and enjoy drinking  from our farm pond.
We have many azealas and the deer  were eating the buds.
The only and very successful solution was Milorgonite.  It is a slow release nitrogen and Deer hate it. I now use it many ways . Nitrogen , Ramial wood compost activator,  fertilizer  in addition to  being the only deer deterrent that actually works.
Top of that it’s cheap. $12 for 40 pounds.

Now for raccoons !!!

I haven't tried yet but I think there is a mixture of stuff like garlic and hot peppers blend and put in spray bottles ...im going to try it soon but for now I'm using a deer and rabbit repellent from home depot on my roses because the deer seem to know when the rosebuds are just right and cruise by and eat them all off just before they bloom!   So far its working!