go to beauty shop and get a bag of hair. put about a handful in a kneehigh stocking, Tie 1 about every 20 ft. apart and about 3 ft high. I was infested with them and this works wonderfully for me. hope this helps .
have a blessed day
bamagene

How about making a wattle fence from tree branches.

Try the link below for "how to" instructions.

From that link: Wattle fences are easy to make and practically cost nothing to build.

We have lots of deer too and a fence is the only thing we can do to keep them from the vegetables, etc.

Here's another neat link with lots of pictures: http://www.inspirationgreen.com/wattle-fence.html

Here is a link that might be useful: How to Make Wattle Fencing

I live in 'da hood' so I don't have personal experience with deer. But I'm wondering if row covers would work, at least on your low-lying plants.

Yes, deer are jerks but boy they make for a fine chili!

Is it possible for you to try a motion detector sprinkler?

For what you'd spend on the repellents over a few years you can put up a fence. I like the idea of low tunnels over the low-lying crops. Just get some 9-10 gauge wire and some bird netting to put over your cabbage, etc.

Never had a problem with deer and anything thorny so don't know why they ate your raspberries but they will come back.

Definitely worth fencing your fruit trees - just the 2x4 inch mesh is fine.

If everything is in a smallish area then rebar pounded into the ground with UV-resistant PVC (gray) slipped over it and 7ft netting tied to it (drill holes in the PVC to hang from top, you may want to stake the bottom) is pretty cheap fence, you can take it down over the winter if you have room to store the roll of netting and the lengths of PVC (like maybe up in the rafters of the garage?).

I am with AJS. It makes no sense to pay for deer out when a fence is only marginally more expensive. I just gave away for free 330 ft of invisible deer fence, which is less than half a dollar a foot (one of my collaborators offered to replace it with wire fence).

If you have the space, a thick hedge with a near horizontal fence (pinned down to the ground on one side) inside is impassable for them. A good electrical fence is less than $100. Get a wildlife one, not one for cows. I have both and there is a tremendous difference in performance.

Also cheap, since it sounds like they just sort of browse through, try the fishingline fence- some have had luck with that since apparently the deer don't like walking into something they can feel but not see.

Deer are jerks. So are woodchucks, rabbits, voles, and sometimes moles.

I don't have any advice, but the thread title made me chuckle. So, that's a plus. :)

Good luck.

Kevin

I was just going to say the same thing. Every time I browse the forum, I see "Deer are jerks!" and laugh.

I'm afraid nothing is going to work except a fence. You can read up on maybe putting in a fence that is just made up of several single strands of wire. I know it's frustrating..........but the deer are just trying to survive like you are. You need a fence.

I hate to say it, but I agree that a fence is the best thing. I feel your pain. I do not even want to think of the trees that they chomped in the winter and killed (or how much those trees cost). Deer netting is reasonably cheap on Amazon but even cheap is hard to do when you are strapped for cash.

What we do in our non-fenced areas is use Alaska fish emulsion. Even the ones that say they are deodorized stink so we spray that on the roses, trees, etc. It helps some. I also leave a milk jug in the bathroom for DH to deposit predator urine into. I dilute it and pour around the perimeter of the garden and that helps some too. Unfortunately, the cost of living close to nature is nature.

FWIW, cry, it will not solve the problem but it helps relieve the tension.

I put up an electric fence with 3 strands of hot wire around an acre of garden for a total cost of just a tad over $200. The fence charger is good for 50 miles of wire and is plenty hot enough to keep deer out. I use a weird trick which seems to help a lot. I tie a spark plug to a metal fence post on the back corner nearest the woods and rig it up so that it sparks whenever the fence fires. The deer avoid it because it makes a sharp popping sound and a flash of light at night.

We also moved on our acreage about 5 years and every year the deer get a little worse, we also live along a green belt that is crown land as far as you can go (live in northern Alberta).

At first the deer weren't bad because the previous owner had a dog... and the "older" deer reminder the dog and stayed away. Its only the younger deer that don't remember (or even know of) the dog that we see it our yard the most.

Do you have a dog that you can let run free that won't run in your garden?

We do have a fence around the garden but its an invisible fence (plastic mesh) and it funnier than hell to watch the deer around it. When they get close to the garden fence their nose touches it but they can't see it so they get all weird. I've read that fishing line does the same thing.

I don't know how big your garden is but maybe you could put up a fishing line barrier at about deer nose height.... or if they always seem to enter the garden at the same spot maybe just do something at that point of entry to try and detour them from entering...

In the spring they really like my lilies... I take a chuck of chicken wire about 3 feet tall and wrap it around the lilies... I make sure its small and tall enough that they can't stick their head in and reach the leaves... this might work for the more vulnerable plants...

Good Luck.

... and if you have beets plants watch out because they LOVE beets....

Thirsty dirt wrote: "We do have a fence around the garden but its an invisible fence (plastic mesh) and it funnier than hell to watch the deer around it."

That's the best solution. Home Depot sells a 7' x 100' roll of DeerBlock Protective Mesh for $21. A friend has to use it at his in town plant stand and it works!

Buy 4 t- posts (plus 1 to make a gate), and borrow a t-post driver. Then maybe a 1/2" pvc pipe plus a roll of bailing wire to make extensions to the t-posts to make up for the 7' height of the mesh, unless you get the more expensive 8' t-posts to begin with. That should do it for about $50 total, or even less if you can use existing trees instead of the t-posts.

This post was edited by mecdave on Fri, Jun 6, 14 at 6:39

We use T posts with PVC zip-tied to tops as extensions, the netting was a little more expensive than that - get the heavier deer netting, not the bird netting as it won't last. 14 gauge or smaller wire run through holes drilled in the PVC would be good to hang the netting from - we just used wire twist-ties to hang the netting from each pipe but it sags.

The black netting is just about invisible, the green T posts are inconspicuous, the gray PVC not so much.

Sorry for the bad photo, garden fence is to the left on top of the stone wall, I was trying to get a pic of the turkeys.

Garden Simple, I feel your pain! Our property adjoins a National Park where no hunting is allowed, and from Sept to March we have lots of deer.

For small plants like lettuce, you can make cages from flexible 2x4-inch mesh wire fencing. Cut a square, then cut flaps into the ends and fold them in like a box, secure with zip ties. I started using these to keep the chickens off my beds, and then discovered that they keep out rabbits and deer, too.

Another cheap fix is to enclose sensitive beds with fabric landscaping fencing (geotextile fabric stapled to posts) like they use to control erosion at construction sites. When deer (or sheep) can't see something, they don't try to eat it.

A niggling detail. Deer love love love beans, so I think it may have been your neighbor's sheep. In my garden, the first things deer hit are the beans and sweet potatoes.

Wow! Some great ideas here. Our garden area is small but including the trees and berries it's about a half acre- an electric fence is really around 100 bucks?! Where should I be looking, a big box hardware store?
I'm going to check out the deer mesh today as maybe a temporary solution.
The deer out was 32 bucks, I figured a fence would be several hundred.

If it was my neighbors sheep I don't wen know what to do :/ he's 78 and you wouldn't know it, he's still a healthy farmer - but his fence has failed 5 times in the last two years. He's known for shooting dogs that come into his property because they kill his chickens (aka food), and I think it's crap his sheep can come eat my crops with not so much as an I'm sorry :/

Also, my husband is convinced whatever it was came from my neighbors because of the line of poop there and also the poop was not pellets like deer normally hve, but I read sometimes in dry summers (and this is so far) the poop can be more like this was.

If you have trees around the whole area, you could put several strands of wire around the trees................with the trees acting as stakes. I remember a long time ago, Martha Stewart doing this to protect a large area of plants. I think the wire needs to be at something like 3', 6' and 9' high.

I was just coming to ask that! We have trees all along the back and sides, and I'm wondering if trying fishing wire around the perimeter MIT help for now. I know it's not a permanent solution, but one I could implement this weekend. Looking at electric fencing, win the kiddos running around I might need to avoid that for now.

I'd be more worried about kids RUNNING through fishing wire stretched tight that they can't see - esp. if neck/face level. They'd be able to see the electric fence, and while it might hurt, they'd remember it and stay away. It's not like high-voltage power lines. Try Tractor Supply.

We've got several hundred acres of woods around us too, deer are the least of the wildlife, though 1 of the more destructive to the garden. Everything has to be fenced, and I don't have electricity in the main growing area.

I have major deer problems and feel your pain. Some sort of permanent fence is your best option, but it can be time consuming and expensive. T-stakes and the mesh type deer fencing works and is pretty fast to set up. You'll want it to be 6ft high or the deer will hop right over it. The rolls of deer netting can be a bit expensive, but do it once and it's done.

I've also got a lot of experience with deer repellents and they do work, some better than others. My favorite is Deer Stopper (has a STOP sign on the label with a deer running across it). It smells nice, not like the rotten egg repellents, and it's water resistant. It's also approved for organic use. The label indicates that if it has an hour to dry before it gets wet that it will last for a month. The rotten egg spray you need to respray every time you get a heavy rain.

The problem with the sprays is that even if it keeps the deer from eating your veggies, they'll still walk right through your garden and stomp on everything. Before we installed permanent deer fencing we put up low tunnels and pulled the row covers down every night. That worked well. You can just cover your vegetables with row covers without the hoops, but the deer will walk over it and poke holes in it.

Something else you may want to consider is portable fencing from Ken Cove. It's only 4ft tall, but you can electrify it. Pricier than t-stakes and netting, but very fast to install. We use it to keep chickens out of our vegetables.

My thought was to apply the fishing wire a little further back in the woods and in areas the kids don't use, probably with white rags tied to it too.

My husband has been insisting on fencing for years, but we assumed it was too far out of budget.

Fishing line will confuse them. I use that to keep them going past my yard...they travel through, between our properties and have formed a path...i also stacked some branches to keep them in line...a bit of a wild bramble fence.
Fishing line is cheap, but i did tie a bit of red tape to remind us it is there.
(just a few where needed.

A mama gave birth to twins last week just out back nestled in some forest shrubs...30ft from my back deck...future garden destroyers.

My veg garden has a full proper fence now, but for the first few years we used the metal stakes and deer-x and it worked fine but gets annoying after a while...very cheap though...

I use fishing line around my hostas and some bars of stinky soap....and spray with garlic/pepper/bit of soap...

For me the fishing line in the orchard did not work. They broke it. In the garden, I used steel wire painted black. They broke it. They will even get under fences. But an electric shock terrifies them and they stay away. google deer electric fence and make sure it is for wildlife, not cattle. do make sure you smear the top wires with peanut butter for a quick deer training.

catherinet 5 wrote:
"If you have trees around the whole area, you could put several strands of wire around the trees................with the trees acting as stakes. I remember a long time ago, Martha Stewart doing this to protect a large area of plants. I think the wire needs to be at something like 3', 6' and 9' high."

I've built many deer feeder pens with barbed wire with the intent to keep cows out. Three or four wires spaced a foot apart is all that's needed for cows, but the deer just step between the wires. I've even seen a doe hop sideways between them.

I'm afraid 3', 6', and 9' spacing wouldn't even slow a deer down.

Until you get some kind of fence up (the permanent solution, and yes I have used existing trees as posts for the deer netting) the repellants do work: I currently have plantskydd, alternating it with asafoetida powder (from Indian cooking). I do have to reapply after rains. I can't fence my entire property yet, and they like many of my flowers and plants beyond the fruits and veggies -- the repellants are working.

I saw this post after posting the one below. I don't know how long it will work or if it is actually what is helping.

Here is a link that might be useful: Deer cam

From my experience the best answer is a dog. Our lab patrols my garden all growing season and, unlike many of my neighbors, while we often see groups of 6-10 deer in our meadow, they never come near the house or my gardens. Nor do the fox, woodchucks and raccoons. I do have a fence - about 4' high and buried 6 inches (for woodchucks) but I know that would never stop a determined deer.

IME deer adore pea and bean sprouts above all, so the fact that your beans were not eaten is strange.

I have had deer problems, had fencing 6' high 4years ago deer went over it and tore it down as there food mast was low. I put the fence back up and added a 45% angle on top. this has worked as I was given this advice from a deer farmer. I used 6' t post 4' range fence and 2' pvc pipe on top with a 45 elbow and 2' pvc out wove the top 4' fence over the pvc. also fastened the 2 4' fence together. I did post photos at backyardchicken.com. the pvc was 1 1/2" diamature. hope this helps. old seed 1. look for post at backyard chicken by 1 old hen