Deer Behaving Badly

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Sometimes things just don’t work out as planned, including keeping deer and other animals out of our gardens or away from our plants. Last week I spoke at a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group about gardening in our area. One of the questions was how to keep deer out of the garden.

Of course, I recommended my favorite Scarecrow motion activated sprinkler deterrent, but not everyone wants to spend that kind of money to protect a couple of tomato plants.

My next suggestion was to use the floating row covers on individual plants, because it’s effective (if they can’t see it, they don’t work as hard to eat it) and it’s relatively inexpensive. But even the best barrier fences don’t always deter these tenacious animals.

Extended Fence

A friend of mine has an excellent deer-proof yard. She has to because the deer in our neighborhood are very habituated.

The other evening, my husband and I came home from a date around 7:30 (yes, we’re not exactly a wild couple), and I saw four deer nonchalantly walk across the street into a fenced yard. They act like they own the place. Dogs, people—nothing deters them.

My friend extended her 4-foot-tall chain link fence another 4 feet high. It worked well until they found the weak spots; namely her gates. She has to put a barrier in front of them to keep the deer from hopping over, because they’re not always smart enough to go out the same way.

She showed me evidence this spring by the large hole in her extended fence. It looks like a deer got inside the fence and forget the exit. It panicked and went right through the upper fence. I can’t imagine what was going through the deer’s little brain. But the scary thing is no matter how terrified the deer probably was when it tried to find a way out it didn’t learn a lesson.

Egg Solution for Deer

I have my own deer issues to contend with this spring. I’ve noticed they’re already eating the tulips emerging from their layers of leaves and other garden debris (because I didn’t get anything cleaned up last fall). So I’m going to have to treat them with my mixture of a dozen eggs in a gallon (or so) of water. Shake well and dump all over the plants. You never want to use this on edible plants, but it works great on the spring bulbs.

Will Netting Keep Deer Out?

I’ve used netting in the past, but the one thing I’ve found with deer is that if anything sticks outside of the netting, they will eat it.

I’ve had that happen with squash. Everything was fine until the vines snuck out from underneath the protective covering. They trimmed them right off! And I’ve had them eat the tops of tomatoes out of the Wall-O-Waters. I couldn’t believe they chewed the foliage sticking out of the plastic water-filled teepee, but they pruned them back.

My point with all of this is you just have to do your best. Those deer are wily critters with a single tracked mind, particularly when new growth is awfully tempting after a long winter of chewing on dried grass and twigs. You just have to stay one step ahead of them.

Meet Amy Grisak

Amy is a freelance author and photographer in Great Falls, MT who specializes in gardening, foods, and sustainable agriculture. She provides information on every kind…

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