Guardin’ the Garden
As you saw in our last post, deer have been snacking on our hard work. So far we know they like peppers (or at least their leaves), strawberries (the whole plant), swiss chard, green bean leaves, and they like the foliage of our beets but not the actual beet, which is kind of annoying because in the process of eating the leaves – harvest-ready or not – they pull out the beet. Their path has been obvious.
Swiss chard chomping:
Green bean binge:
The deer are looking past the pastures of fresh, organic grass and honing in on our more “exotic” offerings. This is a problem we anticipated but now that we’re faced with it we’re scrambling for solutions. As expected, our fence isn’t tall enough. The wind chimes we bought are so heavy they hang stoic in gale force winds. The liquid fence, although very potent (imagine the worst smells your body has ever produced all mixed together and combined with the liquid that has pooled at the bottom of a dumpster in August), keeps getting washed away by the rain. Our next thoughts of prevention are radios, motion lights, strategically strung fishing line, borrowing a dog, and me dressed as a bear. If you have any suggestions let us know.
-a.
Tags: Garden
Nerdalie - August 1, 2009 10:35 pm
My mom has been having deer problems too and a friend of hers recommended getting hair clippings from the barbershop and making little bags of hair to hang around your garden. Apparently they don't like the smell of humans, though you'll have to change the hair every week for maximum potency. (Oh, and nylon stockings are supposed to work well for putting the hair in.)
Stephanie - August 6, 2009 7:57 pm
My grandpa swears by running tall posts up on the corners of his fence, then winding string up high around them, making a sort of string fence – he says the deer don't realize it is not a solid fence and that it works to keep them out.