Design

I wasn’t sure where to file this one. I’m looking for advice on how to grow more food and get a harvest without wild animals getting to everything. I currently have a fenced garden that’s about 800 sq ft. That’s enough for veggies, but I’m wanting to grow in self-sufficiency. I have enough land space to do it, but I won’t want to put an 8ft fence around my whole property to keep out deer. I’d like to share most of the land with deer and rabbits but I’m not sure how to encourage them to eat things other than crops I’d like to grow for humans. Thinking of growing potatoes, quinoa, oats, beans, sunflowers, and camas.

Bethany Brown wrote:I wasn’t sure where to file this one. I’m looking for advice on how to grow more food and get a harvest without wild animals getting to everything. I currently have a fenced garden that’s about 800 sq ft. That’s enough for veggies, but I’m wanting to grow in self-sufficiency. I have enough land space to do it, but I won’t want to put an 8ft fence around my whole property to keep out deer. I’d like to share most of the land with deer and rabbits but I’m not sure how to encourage them to eat things other than crops I’d like to grow for humans. Thinking of growing potatoes, quinoa, oats, beans, sunflowers, and camas.

This is a battle we all share I think.  In my mind, you have three options.  The 8 ft fence (or a dead hedge, living hedge, or the like) you mentioned around your food forest area is one.  Another is a good livestock guard dog.  The third is to plant "sacrificial" plants, trees and bushes around the perimeter that have high appeal for your deer in the hopes they will eat those and not the plants you want to eat.  This can work to a degree, but you will have to keep in mind several other things.  Those plants will need protection until they are established enough to handle the deer browse.  It will take a number of years for them to get to the point of being useful.  Even once it is established, you will still have heavy losses in your actual food forest.  The trees in the food forest will need protective fencing anyway until they are large enough to be safe.  I lost many, many trees when I first started planting.  I started fencing each tree so they would have a chance.  Financially, I think it makes more sense to fence the whole area with 8 foot poly deer fence for at least the first 5 or 6 years.

  Same problem.  I have 2000sqft of vegi irrigated fenced garden but I need 3 million calories for 3 adults.  That much seed is also very expensive.  I found cheep seed at green cover seeds milpa mix. I am going to plant a 1/4 acre and see if the dear leave any for me.  This will not be irrigated so it will be interesting to see if it grows.

I am going to plant 1 bed with the milpa seed in the irrigated garden to see how different it grows with water.

https://store.greencover.com/products/milpa-garden-warm-season

Tom