Our garden is at the edge of the woods on our 5 acre lot
so needless to say there are plenty of deer checking out
the delicious vegetables that they assume is their buffet.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to fence at the top of our rocky ridge,
T-posts barely get deep enough and only with a lot of effort.
We've surrounded two of the larger beds with them as best we can.
Soon it is obvious that the deer are coming close so I
make a trip to the local store and stock up on items to make
my deer fence.
*any sort of aluminum pie tins, cookie sheets or cake pans
*fishing line
*twine
Duct tape
* scissors or a knife
I cut stips out of the cake or cookie tins then put a hole in the
top of each. If I use the pie tin, I leave it whole.
Then I attach a doubled section of twine
long enough to flap in the breeze but not hit the plants.
I then attach them to the T-posts on the garden perimeter
and add some to the cattle panels inside the boxes.
I may need to shorten the twine as the plant grows.
The tins bang and flap in the breeze hopefully scaring off
anything that might want to nibble on the veges.
After securing the tins to either the cattle panels or T-posts
I then tie off the fishing line to a corner T-post.
I wind it around a couple of time and then string it to the next post
and so on until the box is almost completely closed.
Every so often I tie off the line so it won't all collapse
if it is broken in one place.
I have decided to leave a small entry this year rather
than trying to step over or duck under the line.
When the deer approach the garden they can't see the line,
but they can feel something pressing against them.
This spooks them and more often than not, they turn away.
Of course I too cannot see this line so I have added
a few pieces of duct tape around the line here and there.
Last year I broke the line several times!
We have been pretty successful in keeping the deer out
as long as we continue to repair any broken line.
It does not help with birds though and I may need netting
for the beans which they seem to nip off all the time.
3 comments:
That's a nice looking fence. I am impressed with it because I was never able to keep the deer out of our garden when I was trying gardening.
Always something we have to work around isn't there. I'm sorry you have such a deer problem. I too have a little trouble with them. They like to nip my young shrubs down to nubs but the ones that make it to a larger size doesn't attract them anymore. Hope they don't get all of your crops.
Living and gardening in rural northern Wisconsin means constant visitors from deer - and they jump so much higher than you would expect! We finally had to put high fencing around our 6 raised beds - did not want to but. We also have a large natural pond with ducks and returning geese who who nest every spring. The geese can be such a messy nuisance once the little ones are mobile so up went a fishing line fence on the western side. Does not slow them down too much though...with our newest sheltie pup they may have met their match :o)
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