Author Topic: The deer are eating all my plants  (Read 1259 times)

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Offline geezerbiker

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The deer are eating all my plants
« on: July 06, 2012, 04:32:28 AM »
I'm moving out of the city to a small town and one of the first things I did was to move my container garden to the new place.  I dropped them off and came back a couple days later and found my strawberries down to stems only.  My pepper plants were only a little better and they ate about 1/3 of the leaves off my tomatoes.  Fortunately I didn't move one container of strawberries so maybe I'll still have a small fall crop.  I'm going to see if I can buy more pepper plants today...

Since the house is in the town, shooting the deer is frowned upon.... So anybody have any other ideas to keep these animals at bay.  I'm going to look into fencing but that's going to make it a pain to get to my plants. 

Tony

Offline arky65

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2012, 05:01:26 AM »
Get a hot wire going around your plants and bait it with peanut butter. Deer like peanut butter and will lick it and get a shock. It will take time to train the whole herd but they will learn to stay away. They give my orchard a wide berth now and I have not had the wire on for months. 

Are you sure it is deer it may have been insects. Hungry insects can do a lot of damage in a few days. I would suspect deer would have upset the containers and  strewn them all over.

Offline gendoc

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2012, 05:17:44 AM »
tony, you needta get you a crossbow ana nuther freezer........... ;)
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in tha meen time, i'm wait'n for tha  7th trumpet ta sound !!!

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burn ya lil'bit did'nt it. ya ever been snipe hunt'n ?  come on...

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Offline geezerbiker

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #3 on: July 07, 2012, 08:37:42 PM »
tony, you needta get you a crossbow ana nuther freezer........... ;)

I like your thinking.  I've been toying with the idea of quite round ball loads for my .44 mag rifle too. 

This was most certainly deer eating my plants.  I sprayed them before this happened and bug crap isn't that big...

The good news is when I looked at the strawberry plants today, they were all growing new leaves.  I thought for sure they were dead.  I don't think the pepper plants have enough leaves left to produce so I picked up a few more from the nursery today.

Tony

Offline Drilling Man

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #4 on: July 08, 2012, 02:04:12 AM »
  You just can't kill/eat all the deer that get into a garden...
 
  Buy some of the hottest hot sauce you can find, you can thin it a bit with water in a blender and then spray it on your plants.  I've done this in years past, and it does work.
 
  DM

Offline geezerbiker

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #5 on: July 08, 2012, 05:25:52 AM »
Right now I'm using deer netting to slow them down but I like the hot sauce idea.  The problem is I'm rather wimpy when it comes to hot sauce so I don't know what buy.  Can you suggest a brand?

I'll still probably take a few deer from my garden.  The eat my plants so I'll eat a few of them...

Tony

Offline stimpylu32

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #6 on: July 08, 2012, 09:59:20 AM »
If all else fails , look for a Zoo or Wild Animal Park and get some BIG CAT dung , that will keep them out , just the sent will send them  running back to the hills !  ;D
 
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Offline Drilling Man

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #7 on: July 08, 2012, 11:23:29 AM »
  Anything that's hot, tobasco will work...  If you have a mexican store near by, they should have stomething that is extremely hot.  Brand doesn't matter, none of the animals like hot sauce.
 
  DM

Offline muznut 54

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #8 on: July 08, 2012, 12:33:00 PM »
Dog hair around and on your plants.

Offline longwinters

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #9 on: July 08, 2012, 01:46:24 PM »
You could try the spray on Deer and Rabbit Repelant products.  We have deer that lay in our front yard and they have never taken a bite off of any of my veggies etc. but I spray every day. My wife isn't as consistent with the spray and has had some of her flowers in the front of the house munched. As suggested an electric fence or even a deer fence about 8-10' high, which is what people around here typically use.
 
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Offline Larry L

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #10 on: July 08, 2012, 02:03:21 PM »
Plant Marigolds with yer plants. Deer can't stand the smell of them and leave the goodies alone. Marigolds also work on all kinds of bugs that'll eat yer groceries.

Offline Bugflipper

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #11 on: July 08, 2012, 06:34:19 PM »
Habanero sauce is the hottest my local grocery store carries.


I like that electric fence idea. If my method quits working I will try that. I just put up 4 T posts around the garden. Then put fishing line around them. It has worked for 10 years, but I've had a big dog outside for the last 5. I think I read it in a hunting magazine. They supposedly can't see the mono so it freaks them out when they walk into something that is getting them.

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Offline Victor3

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #12 on: July 08, 2012, 08:24:00 PM »
 My Sister has roses outside her front window that deer like to eat at night. A neighbor had success keeping them away with this method, so Sis tried it...
 
 She got a life-size picture of a mountain lion's face, pasted it on a white paper background, put two LEDs from a Christmas light string in the eyes and placed it in the window. Sis says she hasn't had her flowers eaten since.
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Offline charles p

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #13 on: July 09, 2012, 08:44:05 AM »
We have a brick walk up to or front door.  Deer eat flowers on one side and not the other.  For some reason they do not like to walk on my pavement.  No explanation.

Offline fatercat

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #14 on: July 09, 2012, 11:11:04 AM »
plant more

Offline JBlk

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #15 on: August 27, 2012, 01:42:45 AM »
Another trick that works is to put two or three marbles in a empty plastic milk jug and hang them in the area they are eating the plants.I also have alot of turkeys as well as deer and it also seems to work on them.

Offline geezerbiker

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #16 on: October 03, 2012, 07:46:31 PM »
The deer netting saved my strawberries, maters and pepper plants but I didn't anticipate what the deer would do to my trees.  They rubbed enough bark off my pear and 2 plum trees that there was no saving them.  I decided to cut them down rather than watch them wither.

Admittedly I wasn't that crazy about these trees anyway and it's making room for me to plant the peach and walnut trees I really want but I will have to get creative in protecting them once they're in.

I'm thinking more about how I can harvest a deer in my back yard and get away with it...  ;D

Tony

Offline blind ear

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Re: The deer are eating all my plants
« Reply #17 on: October 03, 2012, 08:44:15 PM »
The deer netting saved my strawberries, maters and pepper plants but I didn't anticipate what the deer would do to my trees.  They rubbed enough bark off my pear and 2 plum trees that there was no saving them.  I decided to cut them down rather than watch them wither.

Admittedly I wasn't that crazy about these trees anyway and it's making room for me to plant the peach and walnut trees I really want but I will have to get creative in protecting them once they're in.

I'm thinking more about how I can harvest a deer in my back yard and get away with it...  ;D

Tony
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