keeping Deer out of my garden

[CTyler]

What does everyone do in rural areas to keep deer out of thier garden?

[DocHeb]

Human Hair
Irish Spring Soap
Repellent Sprays
Motion Sensor Sprinklers
Radios Playing
Electric Fence
Dogs
Guns
10 foot high fence

If there is more than one way to do something, it usually means that the different alternatives don't always work. Only the last in the list above will work for sure.

[CTyler]

This will be the thrid year for our garden and we have yet to keep a kernel of corn. Most evrything else is left alone.

The first year coon ate most all the corn.

Second year I put up an electric fence from about 4 inches to 5+ feet. This kept the coon out but the deer started to jump the fence after a while. Then we started spraying deer repelent. This seemed to work for a while bit but they are persistant buggers. Then I shot a few of them with a high power pellet rifle, don't want to kill them out of season ya know. Anyway that doesn't deter them either.

So...short of a motion sensor and an Uzi... whats the solution?

[nmu98]

I have had poor luck with the repellent sprays. Even the blood meal sprays. They seem to get used to it. The only item, other than the fencing, that I have had luck with on doc's list is human hair. Our good friend is a stylist and we get bags of it from her. That seems to work well in my area to keep them out of the stuff growing on the ground.

The deer in my area have field upon field of corn, so they never bother mine by the house. But they do eat all the pumpkin buds out of our 3 to 4 acres of pumpkins if we do not use hair.

Good luck!

[greenmule]

Fence.

[cowboy357]

We Feed Our wildlife as a lot of Folks do , Several feeders in Different Locations Keeps them Away from the Places We Dont want Them. Afterall They just want to eat. . Also placing a cheap Radio in the Garden would Help, I Beleive As They stay away from noise IMO .

Other Then that I,d say Grow enough for Everyone . . Best of Luck. Bob

[MossRoad]

What does everyone do in rural areas to keep deer out of thier garden?

We move to the city!

[MossRoad]

A friend of mine got one of those motion activated sprinklers. He said it actually works very well. He also soaked his mother-in-law a few times. He said that was a bonus.

[czechsonofagun]

Free roaming dogs will scare them away and I am sure them deer will not get used to them.

[Chuck52]

This has been addressed so many times in the past, but here we go again.

I'm sure there are places with more deer than here in the middle of Missery, but we have enough to be a decent test. I have fenced my garden for the last 6-7 years with 52" cattle panels. The deer would jump that easily, so I attach a pvc extension to every other other t-post and run something they can see as high as I can reach. I've used nylon cord with things tied to it, like plastic grocery bags. Lately I've used the plastic marking tape instead of the cord. It comes in lots of colors, but yellow seems to be the cheapest. We've had some miserable dry years in the period I've had my garden fenced this way, but I have never had a deer jump through my "barrier". Could they? Sure they could. If they were desperate enough I'm sure they would, but maybe I just have calm deer.

Chuck