Deer

[PeggyStudent]

I think a thread on this topic might be helpful to others who live in areas with a large deer population. I noticed that the deer do not touch my calendula, yet my baby elderberry plants get decimated if I don’t protect them with a deer fence. I have noticed that none of the deer in my yard are ever sick with colds or the flu. Hoping others will chime in and let us know what deer love/hate from their experience.

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Sydnia Ginger Anady, Kathy Parks

[PaigeStudent]

I have both growing in protected and unprotected areas.  We have deer all over.  The only thing that I can think as to why I do not have a problem like all my neighbors is because of all my dogs (5).  I highly recommend dogs for a lot of reasons, this just seems to be an added benefit.  Best. P

PMR

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Deb, Sydnia Ginger Anady, Peggy

[TINA ANGELLStudent]

I second the dogs. Here in NC we have a lot of deer also and my dogs keep them away from most of my goodies and of course a fence is some help too.

[Darlene NorrisStudent]

Deer are eating machines. There are certain things they like more than others, but in my experience, they’ll eat just about anything they can get to, and will trample down the rest. We had to put a high fence around the garden last year. and we plan to expand it this year to make our garden bigger. We used two strands of electric fence at face level for a deer, and the rest of the strands were thick string that they could see. My guess is that they thought it was all electrified, and it faked them out. We did get our revenge though, as we harvested a couple of them last fall!

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Catherine Carpenter, Sydnia Ginger Anady, Peggy

[Kathy ParksStudent]

We also have a lot of deer. Last year I put up a temporary 5 foot fence with a string placed 1 1/2 feet above it. It worked well, but we also have trellises and hoops on many of our beds, so I think the deer didn’t feel that they had a safe place to land.

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Sydnia Ginger Anady, Peggy

[Lisabeth SeverinStudent]

We enjoy watching the deer in our yard, but we put a high fence around MOST of our edibles. A previous owner planted English ivy in various places, the deer eat it quite a bit especially in later winter, early spring. The deer are welcome to it.

I didn’t think I’d need to protect the potted plants on our front wood deck…I was wrong. They ate about 1/4 of a potted tomato plant, I thought nightshade leaves were poisonous? They sampled a potted purple smokebush shrub. They ate the leaves off the potted alpine strawberries…I witnessed that one. They nibbled some leaves off a potted St John’s Wort.

The deer don’t seem to eat every bit of a plant, they like to sample this and that. They pick and choose, making some surprising choices. Kind of like spoiled foodies.

They sampled an oakleaf hydrangea…eating the tender tops of the branches as it was not yet in leaf. They ate a volunteer native elderberry shrub that came up in the back ivy, just the top 1/4 of the tender leafy branches. They ate the flowering tops of my Takane Ruby Buckwheat growing up out of a chicken wire cage set around it.

My husband thought we wouldn’t need to fence a section of our veggie garden that was at the top of a steep, ivy-covered slope. The deer, being much more athletic than my husband and I, entered and ate cucumber leaves, zucchini leaves and the whole top off a young sunflower. That one hurt…I just had a sunflower stem left, what can you do with that?

Early this past winter, the deer jumped over the homemade gate of our new garden addition that I’d planted a cover crop of cereal rye in and they ate the tips of the new shoots in one area and left hoof prints in the rest. Luckily the cover crop survived. We changed the gate.

One winter I deliberately planted lettuce and kale in pots for the deer, set them out in our front lawn area, and the plants were ignored. The lettuces (butterhead and romaine) finally died of the cold. I don’t get it. Maybe if I’d made a half-hearted attempt to protect the lettuces, or set them on the edge of the front deck? The kale eventually flowered early summer and the deer deigned to nibble the blossoms when I set it next to a bird feeder.

As a bonus, our neighbor raises goats and they enjoy eating all the same things the deer eat. They really love the yellow raspberry leaves and young shoots; probably the deer do as well. We are planning on getting a fence around the berry area this year.

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Sydnia Ginger Anady, Sandra Cheatham

[Sandra CheathamStudent]

I live in an area near Cincinnati Ohio, the area is called Deer Park.  My back yard is almost all raised garden beds, for years I fought the deer and called my garden the deer salad bar.  Last year after fighting deer for over 20 years, I had a 6.5 foot fence installed.   Now they just eat all the stuff not behind the fence.  But I can finally have tomatoes, sunflowers and cucumbers.

Sandra

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Sydnia Ginger Anady, HeatherS

[HeatherSStudent]

I live in a heavily deer populated area also.  They have eaten all my sage.  I still have basil though.

[Denise RogahnStudent]

Noisemakers, such as wind chimes or bits of tin foil, sometimes repel them; also fishing wire strung around the area to be protected will often make them wary.

[Carolyn MazarakisStudent]

Gauzy Tulle fabric covering my plants has been my only failproof way to deter deer from my scattered garden spots, now that we no longer have a dog. Racing outside after them whooping like a crazed Viking and flailing a coat or blanket can help in the short term.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 5 months ago by Carolyn Mazarakis.

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Christy Skalnik

[karen jensenStudent]

I knew someone who connected an old electric can opener from the thrift store to a motion sensor. When the deer came around, the noise from the can opener would scare them away!

[Beth BrayStudent]

I bought two 10×20 foot chicken runs to enclose my raised beds so that I could finally enjoy the fruits (and vegetables) of my labor instead of the deer and squirrels.

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Marshell Martin

[Marshell MartinStudent]

I live in southern Georgia, our property is cleared without many trees, we have deer passing through but doesn’t eat any of our vegetation because of the open area they don’t feel safe.

[Teresa BreedenStudent]

I was complaining to a friend at church a couple of weeks ago about the deer in my gardens and she said that she had problems with deer eating her garden too, but noticed they left the strawberry bed alone that was near her husband’s shop.  The long and the short of it is, her husband doesn’t care to walk all the way back to the house from the shop to relieve himself, and so the strawberry patch is protected.  She advised me to have my husband walk around the garden more, or to collect the urine and apply it around the garden myself—

[Mary ChatelainStudent]

I agree that deer seem to love and need the herbs as much as we do. They have not touched my prickly pear, stinging nettle or black cohosh. All else has been consumed. Dogs would be great but I will need to research fencing instead.

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