Preventing deer without physical barrier

Hi everybody.

I have a bit of a predicament. I’m in the process of creating some garden beds in my smallish suburban yard so that they will be ready for planting next spring. I had planned to put an 8 foot deer fence around the annual garden. Unfortunately, I got notified today that my HOA has rejected my request for approval to build a fence because fences are limited to 4 feet.

Are there any alternative options to keep deer away from annual beds?  I’ve read about the potential of bordering the garden with plants that they don’t like (lavender, rosemary, garlic, chives, etc.), but am hoping for other options as well. I’ve also been told that scare tactics (sprinklers, ultrasonic alarms, etc) don’t work in the area.

We have very heavy deer pressure in our neighborhood.  If it matters, I’m in Zone 5b.

Any ideas are appreciated!

Some suburban areas allow for bow hunting.  If you are interested, look into it.

Gray Henon wrote:Some suburban areas allow for bow hunting.  If you are interested, look into it.

I wish. I already got scolded for setting up a target and practicing with my longbow.

Thanks for the response, though

4 feet. an electric fence should help. Try a solar power one from Parmak. needs new battery every few years or so and works fine most the year and certainly during grow season when sun is out longer.

I would use wolf or lion urine.  

I have very high deer and wildlife pressure here also, since my garden is about 50 feet away from a stream which is like an animal highway. I put up a 4 foot fence at first, and the deer jumped it like it was a game . The posts were 7 feet tall though and I didn't want to buy a whole new fence, so I tied a string to the top of the posts at the 7 foot mark, above the fence, and I have never had one jump it since. I think the visua barrierl at the 7 foot line deters them. I dont know if that would count for the HOA but the fence would technically only be 4 feet tall and just the string tied above it. Good luck Matt!

Steve

I have also successfully used Irish Spring soap to keep deer away.

John F Dean wrote:I have also successfully used Irish Spring soap to keep deer away.

Do you just place the bars of soap around 3-4 feet high around whatever you are trying to keep them away from?

It isn't just "height" that's a deterrent, it's also width. So a 4 ft high fence, with a 4 foot wide "trellis"  attached to it for any variety of plants that would grow on it -  squash, grapes, honeysuckle, clematis - might discourage the deer. A mixture with pretty flowers on some of the vines might help to keep the HOA people happy. Make sure the fence is very secure at the bottom as people in my area have seen deer "lift" chain-link fencing to sneak under it, if there was food they wanted on the other side!

Part of the issue is the degree of pressure. We've had a worse than average drought this year. The deer had never eaten the comfrey from under my plum tree in the 5 years it's been planted there, until this year. It will be interesting to see if they eat it next year if there are alternative food sources, or if now that they've decided it's edible, will it be doomed unless I protect it... I feel your pain as I am very familiar with it.

How about placing 2 or 3 rings of 4' fence about 4-5 ft apart so the deer wont jump in?  Electric fence as previously mentioned always helps too!

Or...  get the HOA to pass a "No Deer" ordinance! :)

Would the HOA approve a four-foot zig-zag fence?

https://permies.com/t/109675/Pallet-zig-zag-fence-multiple

I use cheap soap travel containers.  I drill a few holes in them and hang one on each tree with a bar of  Irish Spring in it.   If animal urine is used , I put a sponge with animal urine on it in each one.  

Jay Angler wrote:It isn't just "height" that's a deterrent, it's also width.

Agreed -- I recall reading about "depth fencing" to keep them out.

I wonder -- since deer (like birds and insects) can see much more of the spectrum into the ultraviolet, would they respond to the night fishing line I use to keep birds from crashing into my house windows? It glows in the ultraviolet spectrum.

Thanks, everybody, for the suggestions. I unfortunately don’t have the space to go wide with the fences. I’ll probably try an electrical fence, and add in a few of the other recommendations.

Im hoping that the rest of our yard, with the various fruit trees and bushes, and all of the other vegetation in the food forest will be enticing enough to have the deterrents around the annual veggies actually work.

I suggest using Milorgonite . It is a relative cheap slow release low concentration fertilizer ( $10-15 fir 40 pounds) from Milwaukee sewage dried sewage treatment plant sludge.
Deer absolutely hate it.
I use to have trouble with deer snaking on my azaleas buds and rose buds
This works well for me in all areas of gardening .
.

Hi Matt,
Good luck on this. It is a hard situation. A couple things that came to mind beyond what other people have already suggested.

An outside dog. This could help deter the deer without fencing.

Another thing is to check very carefully the wording of any rules. I recall hearing about a town that outlawed any livestock... but a family was able to get around it, by having some pets... who just happened to give them eggs once in a while. In your case, does it describe what constitutes a fence? Could you have an 8ft greenbean trellis that just happened to circle your garden? Something you could take down when you are not growing? Sometimes temporary things can be approved where a permanent thing could not be.

***Edit, sorry, I had a lot of typos this morning.

Denny Toot wrote:I suggest using Milorgonite . It is a relative cheap slow release low concentration fertilizer ( $10-15 fir 40 pounds) from Milwaukee sewage dried sewage treatment plant sludge.
Deer absolutely hate it.
I use to have trouble with deer snaking on my azaleas buds and rose buds
This works well for me in all areas of gardening .
.

Is there any issue consuming plants that are fertilized with this?

How does it smell to humans?

Matt McSpadden wrote:
An outside dog. This could help deter the deer without fencing.

We have 2 inside dogs. The HOA has another covenant about the number of pets allowed depending on size of the pets. Our 2 100+ lb dogs already have us breaking that covenant.

Matt McSpadden wrote:
Another thing is to check very carefully the wording of any rules. I recall hearing about a town that outlawed any livestock... but a family was able to get around it, by having some pets... who just happened to give them eggs once in a while. In your case, does it describe what constitutes a fence? Could you have an 8ft greenbean trellis that just happened to circle your garden? Something you could take down when you are not growing? Sometimes temporary things can be approved where a permanent thing could not be.

That’s an interesting approach, and definitely something I’m going to look into

Venison is very tasty...

The problem is the solution, and all that. If your whole area has a deer population problem then it sounds like you have a shortage of hunters. I've no idea what the legislation is like near you, but it is worth looking into. If you are experiencing deer issues then others in your neighbourhood will be as well, and you may get community support for a more widespread initiative.

Matt Turner wrote:

Denny Toot wrote:I suggest using Milorgonite . It is a relative cheap slow release low concentration fertilizer ( $10-15 fir 40 pounds) from Milwaukee sewage dried sewage treatment plant sludge.
Deer absolutely hate it.
I use to have trouble with deer snaking on my azaleas buds and rose buds
This works well for me in all areas of gardening .
.

Is there any issue consuming plants that are fertilized with this?

How does it smell to humans?

No issues that I know off . I don’t smell it at all . NPK is 6-4-0.

I'd put up a camera to understand where the deer enter your property and exit it. When I observed the deer entering my property, I noticed that they merely wanted to cross my yard to my neighbor's flower beds, my garden beds were merely targets of opportunity on their way to my neighbor. Instead of putting a 4.5 ft fence around my whole backyard, I put one around 75% of my backyard, with an unfenced path to my neighbors with flowers in the path so they'd have some snacks on the way to my neighbor.

It may not work as well the first year, because the deer remember that there are some nice snacks in your garden, so they may still jump the fence, but should work better next year as those deer get culled in the hunting season.

M

Here's what I did that actually worked super good until the dogs plowed it down:
Put up posts/sticks as tall as HOA will allow, you don't even need that many depending on how big your plot is. Maybe one at each corner and a few around the middle perimeter. Make sure they are like a foot deep, you can just pound them in, don't worry about digging holes. Then string fishing line (it has to be the clear kind) around, tying to the sticks. About waist high. One line should do it but another line at calf high would be even better. Don't bother tying spookers or fluttery things or cans to them, the point is to be sneaky. And that's it. At night the deer will be cruising through and bump into the line. They can feel it and it spooks them, but they can't see it to go under or over, so they won't go in.

Almond reminded me about the string fence.

Over the years, I have seen some pretty amazing things that folks have done to keep deer from their gardens.

Somewhere on the forum is a picture of an amazing string fence though I can't find it.

https://permies.com/t/40/2376/keeping-deer-stuff#74007

Then there has been discussion about fishing line fences that work similarly to the string fence.

https://permies.com/t/7921/Fishing-line-deer

Maybe something like this with the string or fishing line:

https://permies.com/t/140079/Wavy-Deer-Fence

We have had great results with spraying coyote urine around our beds.  We're in rural Maine and back up to our neighbor's 30 acres where deer live and breed.

This year I planted castor bean plants which also discouraged deer and other critters from eating taller plants.  Castor bean plants are beautiful and easy to grow.  Ours grew to about 8'h x 3'w and protected an area about 12'l x 15'w heavily planted with amaranth, sunflowers, zinnia, etc..  Perhaps placing a castor bean plant on either end of the bed would take care of the problem.

You might want to rethink electric fencing.  We have a lot of yards around us that have it to keep dogs in the owners' yards, but they become accustomed to it or just over it after 6-9 months and then you have the same problem and have spent a lot of money.    

Oops, forgot to say in previous post that you don't have to have a coyote latrine to gather the coyote urine!  Get it at a hardware store.  Invisible fishing line might cause injury even though it seems pretty benign and if it breaks and is consumed it is likely to kill the animal.

connie vickery wrote:You might want to rethink electric fencing.  We have a lot of yards around us that have it to keep dogs in the owners' yards, but they become accustomed to it or just over it after 6-9 months and then you have the same problem and have spent a lot of money.    

Interesting. I hadn’t thought about animals becoming desensitized to the electric fence.

There are a lot of good suggestions in this thread (thank you, everybody!), and I’ll likely end up trying multiple and seeing what works best here. I’ll also probably start with the cheapest options

If I remember, I’ll report back with what worked for me

connie vickery wrote:You might want to rethink electric fencing.  We have a lot of yards around us that have it to keep dogs in the owners' yards, but they become accustomed to it or just over it after 6-9 months and then you have the same problem and have spent a lot of money.

Just to clarify, there are "invisible" fences that use either GPS or buried wires to send a signal to zap a dog wearing a special collar. This sounds like what you are talking about. This is different than an electric net or electric wire fence which I believe is much more powerful and much harder to get used to.

Anne Miller wrote:

Then there has been discussion about fishing line fences that work similarly to the string fence.

https://permies.com/t/7921/Fishing-line-deer

Ours has worked splendidly this year. I did not have any deer enter our fenced area, although they browsed the comfrey outside of it in different weeks. I will try to take a picture...

Here is a shot of about 1/3 of the total area my husband fenced with easily-removable posts and fishing line.

Caveats: I only had a few melons, cucumbers, a gourd, ornamental corn, hyssop, pumpkins and lettuce in here this year, so not a lot, but the deer never bothered any of them. I read that deer don't like to go into long, enclosed spaces, and the only entrance is right there, next to the sidewalk leading up to the front door, so it is very enclosed, and a long rectangle.

Our in-the-middle-of-the city yard is very small. A busy road is at top edge of picture. Sidewalk along front porch is at bottom edge. Where you see the fence (and the nearby part of driveway) is where we have the only sun on the entire 1/4 acre of property. We are surrounded by trees and patches of woods, and deer abound.  This was a successful attempt to begin making the most out of the hand of cards we've currently got!

I have heard that deer won't jump a low fence if they cannot see their landing spot. Perhaps planting a tall growing perennial along the inside of the fence would deter them.

I use CDs on fishing line.  They reflect light and spin in the wind which confuses the deer.  

Matt Turner wrote:

Denny Toot wrote:I suggest using Milorgonite . It is a relative cheap slow release low concentration fertilizer ( $10-15 fir 40 pounds) from Milwaukee sewage dried sewage treatment plant sludge.
Deer absolutely hate it.
I use to have trouble with deer snaking on my azaleas buds and rose buds
This works well for me in all areas of gardening .
.

Is there any issue consuming plants that are fertilized with this?

How does it smell to humans?

In the documentary "Biosludged"  this is one of the products they analyze with their spectrograph for potential toxins.
(documentary is usually viewable for free somewhere online if you do a search)

I've heard good things about motion-activated sprayers, though I haven't afforded one to try for myself.

(random example)
https://www.amazon.com/Repellent-Outdoor-Deterrent-Activated-Sprinkler/dp/B0B347F3K6/141-9027892-7449034

Whatever you choose, let us know what works!

Break your garden into a bunch of 5 foot to 6 foot squares.  Deer don't like jumping into enclosed areas that small.  It is why the double fence works.