Keep Deer Out Of A Garden?

Andrew,

first, the urine thing only works if you are a deer eater, vegetarians get no respect. But deer blood works better.
second, forget about can't and work on won't - deer will only jump a fence if they can see what is on the other side.
third, deer netting works great by itself, I think because it is almost invisible. Would you walk thru a spiderweb as strong as netting? I think not.
fourth, fengshui for evil spirits seems to work, you might try mirror chimes.
fifth, forget about 'sacrifice' you are just attracting them. Plant things they hate outside your garden.

Nite-Guard. You can get it on Amazon.com. little box, solar powered and emits a red beaming light all night long. We put 1 on each side of a 4X4 with a wire nail and put a "X" on the bottom for support. We have almost an acre planted and we move this post every 6 - 8 days. We've had no problem this summer and that's a first. We live deep in the woods and there is a ton of deer. I was told about this from a local bee keeper who's electric fence shorted out regularly and he's now been using them for almost a year, no fence and no bear problems.

First post, new member, woo-hoo.

I live in an area with insane deer pressure in western Pennsylvania. I have tried the fishing line trick and it worked for a bit but the deer got over it and ate all my tomato plants along with almost everything else in the garden. If someone tells me that tomato plants are nightshades and so toxic to deer - that's what our deer are like, and it's not a matter of being starving to death. They just wanna get my goat.

I have two dogs including one border collie who is an enthusiastic guard, but the deer manage to sneak in quietly when the wind favors their not getting detected.

I'm setting out to do a Gallagher fence, that they say is as good a fence as there is, except for maybe the 16 foot high woven. The Gallagher has electrified strands one foot apart on a ten foot pole that is slanted about 45 degrees, high end facing out at the deer. A friend from here said he has seen a deer leap through the fence without touching a strand (apparently) and also seen deer jump over it. I'm hoping to place some proximity alarms (like maybe the ones Bosch makes) that will alert the dogs to breeches.

In Pennsylvania deer are treated as cows are treated in India, it seems, except during hunting season. If your dog chases a deer, normally any joe blow can shoot your dog. I tell ya, times are hard all over if you wanna grow a lousy tomato.

Welcome to permies, John. good to have you here!

We resorted to fence to keep deer out also...not electrified but nine feet tall welded wire with an extra layer of chicken wire around the bottom to keep out the bunnies and smaller critters. good luck!

hi John

welcome to permies
another w pa boy here (Harmony)

yes, deer here are sacred
to be save for the ritual slaughter in the fall

I live in a rural area so the deer pressure isn't so great
a lot of deer but also lots of feed
country deer seem more cautious than city deer
those suburbs are great breeding ground for deer

I don't fence for deer but instead sneak my annuals here and there in my perennial beds
and my neighbor plants a huge garden which takes some of the pressure off me

again welcome

Here is what I tried and so far (~ 3 weeks ) NO DEER

The deer are very plentiful around here (DNR says 50 per square mile -- I think that is low)

The deer prefered to go into my garden and dine on my indian corn and sweet corn rather than walk over to the neighbors 40 acres of GMO Franken food

So here is what I tried after an internet search suggested this:

Get really powerful fencer (I got one that is rated for 100 miles of Bison and NO, I have not tried touching it myself to see how hot it is) and put 2 wires -- one at about waist height another at about 6 inches (the grass is turning brown around the low wire)

Then put aluminum foil baited with peanut butter on the hot line randomly around the fence


The idea is to get them to touch it with their nose or tongue


There has not been one deer track in the garden since I did this - no coon tracks either

I also put up a fairly real looking scare crow in one corner with Ben Gay ointment sprayed on it (not sure if this effective or not) but I am not going to take him down to find out

2 5' fences, 5' apart. They need to run and jump so the short distance prevents them from getting a running start. They wont jump into the 5' gap because they know it will get them stuck. Might not work forever but works fine for me.

Running light trip lines along the edge of the forest also keeps them nervous. Like vines running at 6" to 2'.

We too have a population of Whitetail deer that will make a mess of the garden and fruit trees if given the chance. Two methods I use that really work. 6 foot high solid fence, the deer around here will not jump over a fence that they can not see the other side of. The other method I use is- lay a large household box fan on it's back in the garden. Cut the bottom out of one large plastic garbage bag, tape that to another large plastic bag, so that you have one long plastic bag. Tape the long plastic bag to the fan so that when you turn the fan on, it blows the long bag straight up into the air. Ours reaches about 6 feet in height when inflated. Wire the fan to a motion detector light attached to a nearby post. When a deer walks into the motion detector zone the light comes on and the long bag inflates. Scares the crap out of them-for awhile. So I "tweak" this method by moving it around my garden and wiring a radio to the system once in awhile so that the radio comes on when the light and fan come on. The idea is to not let them get use to any specific system and start ignoring it.