I feel ya, believe me, I've had about enough. In fact, I am fencing an acre this winter with the 7.5 foot 14 gauge woven wire.

A possibility, if a tall wire fence is unsightly, is a double lower fence. Two fences about 5 feet high four or five feet apart should do it. You could do the outer visible one in wood and the inner one metal, maybe.

The black deer netting is invisible unless you're close to it. The type I used was not expensive...$15 for 7'x 100'(at Menard's). The deer can't see it but can feel it and get spooked. This was my set-up, but I wasn't worried about the look. I suppose it could be set up more attractively. It kept the local white tails out of my peppers and tomatoes, which they decimated the previous year.
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I did the same net in a garden before, I used bamboo and rebar, it really works, nice pic.

Yea deer choose what I get to plant on my property, peppers are the only thing I get away with unfenced. One year they ate the peppers the next they did not even go close!!! I dont know! :)

That netting is extremely light-duty, no? If one wants to get some years out of an install it isn't the way to go. Also, if a deer happened to run into it and get tangled it would rip to shreds.

I know what you're feeling...I used to love the squirrels til I started a veg garden....they are so populous in urban areas with no predators and nothing to eat they can take down the whole thing - gnawing the toms right through burlap wraps.....

Enter Mr. Terrier......no problems now!

do you have any dogs? I would fence up your garden area -connected to the egress, and have a self release dog door and take a few weeks to train the dog/s that protecting the veggie area is their job....

You should see mr. terrier if I yell "squirrel!" at the back door. Well - not anymore actually - they don't come by....

They ( deer) are demons indeed ...

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But I disagree with the "reintroduction" stuff. While the howl in the night may seem cool, a couple dozen in your yard around the chicken pen and the "pups" raising cain makes for a sad night of rest.

And this guy is going to tear down the fence and get tangled.

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They are a problem indeed but I agree with pnbrown ... do it right. Of course, they are tasty too ;)

Think of the expense just in deer exclusion that would be required if the eastern US had to produce most or all of its food. It would be enormously cheaper to put professional marksmen in the woods on a regular basis.

I think I read somewhere that the deer can pretty much jump straight up and down and to do the fencing, you want the fencing at an angle \ / then they can't jump over.
I'm not positive, just read it and don't have deer myself. Just something to consider. Nancy

Yes, that is the logic behind the double fence. An angle is good, but then any given fencing material is also less high. My first impulse would be to angle the fence outward, but it might be than inward would be more effective because perhaps the deer might perceive the angle more easily. Part of the battle is psychological, if they think they can't jump it, then they won't.

And a well grounded fence, one wire 3 ft above ground or so, does the most psychologically. They don't even know what to do with it (they know a fence can be jumped), and stay away. The other thing that works is hoop houses. No critter except chipmunks and voles attempts to get into one.

I like the idea of sharpshooters in the surrounding woods. That would take care of the pesky people who raid community gardens too.

Carol

A friend who gardens near power lines got shot at. Since they may shoot from a mile away, there is nothing you can do but get the hell out of there fast. And that is no birdshot, one hit you are gone. Surely he gardens only dressed in orange now. Ideally, those sharpshooters never ever make a mistake. In practice, we are excluded from the woods and nearby areas for a few months a year already as it is. As far as protecting community gardens, grow greens and roots only there, that, too, is psychological but works well enough.

Deer aren't a big problem in our area, mainly because we have fields all around us and live on a farm. They like to sample a few things, but mainly stay out, if there are herbs or flowers they don't like, between them and the vegetables or roses.

An electric fence would never work, out here. We have seven wires, in some parts of our horse fence...and the deer don't even jump over them...they climb through them. They taught one of my horses how to do it, until he finally got too big to fit!

Maybe a double fence, with something growing in between? Blackberries, raspberries, or maybe roses? Something with thorns, might slow them down...especially if they can't reach through the fences :)

Lav, grow some sweet potatoes, and they will come. My place in central fla is like yours, all fields and fences and dogs, yet those dammed deer smelled the thick luscious vines in mid-summer from miles away in the forest and came and devoured every leaf.

hoop houses don't exclude deer if you have roll up sides for ventilation.

Rayinpenn,
A description of your garden area(size, in-ground, raised bed, etc)or even a photo might help get more suggestions. My netting worked because my raised bed, which is only 4'x 12', is fairly close to our apartment building. The vacant lot in the background is a deer thoroughfare to the rest of the town. Some people in town feed them. These deer literally roam the streets at night year-round and during growing season will carefully walk up within 2 or 3 feet of our door to browse the containers I don't have protected. This last season there were 3 doe with 2 fawn each and occasionally a buck would show up(but he stayed away from the building...the doe are regulars). On the east side of the building there is a large fenced yard(70'x 140'). The fencing is 4' chain-link. An older doe will occasionally get into the yard, but I've never seen her jump straight up and over(not saying she can't), but she runs the fence and jumps at an angle to get out when she's discovered. The 'herd' here is small, but persistant. Those are my particulars...what are yours?

My garden is on the far back side of my house (I live on corner lot and most of the perimeter of my lot is wooded) it's the only sunny spot. I carved the garden into the side of a hill. it's about 40 by 40. I have several 4 by 7 raised beds and a mini hoop house of the same size. We harvested lettuce 2 weeks ago -crazy weather! The deer by the way it seems don't like lettuce. I spread some extra lettuce seeds around I was able to reach down yesterday and grab a few lettuce leaves. They were fine, just amazing. I have a pretty big dog but the deer here are not impressed the wander and graze at will.

Some fiends suggested I surround the garden with pepper plants. They suggested onions as well.

I mentioned in another "pest" thread that hanging a bug zapper in my garden seems to deter the deer at night. They get spooked at the sound of moths getting zapped. Best to find an older louder model but I am lucky that my garden isn't near the neighbors bedroom.

I think the only thing that would scare the deer around here is one of those giant air-filled Conan O'brians with arms waving popping up from time to time.
The deer here eat pepper plants, especially the new growth...but not the peppers themselves. The only pepper plants they've left alone are the rocotos which have fuzzy leaves...they don't like fuzzy leaves. I grew as an experiment some cherry tomatoes called Velvet Red, which has extra downy foliage and fuzz on the fruit. I had it protected at first until it was a couple feet high.It was set up against our storage shed where the deer walk past. They did nibble on the top new growth a little, but mostly left it alone until the fruit was ripe, then they carefully pulled the ripe toms off.
As far as fencing, depending on how closely your raised beds are spaced, you might put up 2"x4" welded wire fencing at least 6' high, paint the fencing black and it will disappear. Dark green or brown posts would look nice also.
When we lived in the PNW and in a heavily(black-tail)deer populated area, some people surrounded their gardens with 8' cedar lattice(so the deer couldn't stick their snouts through to munch). It looked very nice. Although, your sun exposure might limit the use of lattice. If I hadn't found the deer netting, I would have put the welded wire around my raised bed, but only about 5' high. The only reason I kept the netting so high is that I didn't want to bother shortening the posts. The deer need a certain amount of space to land and my bed would've been too small an area for a big white-tail to land in. The smaller black-tail could probably hop right in(I'm guessing).
Keep posting and let us know what you decide to do.

There is lots of information on the internet about using an electric fence with metal bait tabs smeared with peanut butter. When the deer touch the tab with their tongue or nose its bye bye, so long or adios. Check it out.

The tabs, if made with aluminum foil, will work until the first wind storm. Then they will blow away, and the raccoons will lick them clean. I suppose a tab made with heavy duty foil, stapled to the wire, may work better. This is for 2012.

This thread is of interest as I now seem to have aquired a deer problem, which is surprising since I live in a city subdivision in a fairly well populated area. The deer seem to be moving to smaller overgrown fields due to elimination of deer habitat in surrounding areas. One such field is adjacent to my lot.

Several of these ideas look to be worth a try.

Anyway, to the comment about the peanut butter on aluminum foil tabs... this did not work for me using my 1250V fence charger. They simply licked the peanut butter off of the tabs... Perhaps one needs higher voltage output for this method to work.

Please support hunting. I only use a bow and my family uses 4-6 deer per year. Hunting is the only proven way to keep the population of deer under control. I love watching them but overpopulation can harm farmers and more humans die each year from deer than any other animal (auto accidents).

Well I can tell you what I have heard from my mother-in-law that lives in a rural area. They have tried the variety of different animal urine, loud blasting machine that goes off at various intervals (this was done by her neighbor), electric fences about 4 1/2 ft tall, human hair, human urine, and dogs. Nothing worked.

We have even seen them a night, we would shine a flash light on them and watch them stand next to the 4 foot fence and just leap right up and over the fence, without a running start. Last winter they actually ate my cactus bed - all 6 x 4 of it. The sad thing is that we have about 17 oak trees around our home and tons of acorns, which were never touched. They ate the bulbed plants, flowers, kale - you name it, even the bird seed which is about 3 feet from the house. I used to love the wildlife when we moved here and could not understand how people could want to shoot them. I too think the sharp-shooter idea is the best idea.

I have learned for flowers, especially in the summer - if you get floral wire (I used the green to blend in) and put it at various heights throughout your flowers, it will poke them in the nose and it will deter them, but you have to keep adjusting it as your plants grow - I have kept up with it and it works with some of the 2 feet and under plants.

Nothing totally works, it is a matter of degrees and how badly they want in. A well-made 8 foot wire fence will nearly exclude them, though the farmer I work with tells me that he has seen large bucks sail over it with ease and also has had deer lay flat on the ground and worm under the wire.

And the best fence is only as good as the gate, sooner or later the gate gets left open, or the beasts learn how to untie a square knot :)

This year I used a motion detector called,PS3 Deer Chaser,to protect our Apples and Roses. It contains a flashing LED light and aFM reciever which you can tune to any local station. I picked a RAP station as it's the most obnoxious,IMO, sound I know. I had no deer all summer but wasn't 100% sure until the batteries went dead, That night the tips of the roses and apple trees were gone. I then invested in Lithium Batteries and a battery charger. Problem solved.

I have read elsewhere too that you can't wait until the first deer attack and then try a remedy. You have to start defenses as soon as the seed is planted, otherwise once the deer get their first taste they will return and defeat the measures taken.

Hmmm, interesting question, do deer prefer classic rock to rap?

"Nothing totally works, it is a matter of degrees and how badly they want in."

I do agree with this. It also depends on the size of the area you're trying to protect, the type of plants and the tastes of your particular deer. You just have to keep trying things until you find what works for you.
I try to read all the "how to keep deer out" threads I can. There are always ideas I can use.

In my area deer are hunted and the remaining ones are apparently not very hungry because there is not many of them, less competition over food. Also they are mostly scared of coming near houses. I got a chance to compare the situation in the Washington DC area where they are not hunted, are present in huge numbers, are obviously very hungry and audacious - practically jump at people. Gardeners there are quite desperate. Apparently the deer numbers could potentially be kept at a healthy average level.

Cant kill?
I have two in my freezer, & still have some problems.
Two fences are best.
We can kill year around if we can prove the deer are eating our crops.

Not if the food-producer lives in a no firearms-discharge residential zone. I guess one could use bow or crossbow.

Wisconsin has a huge White-tail population, heavily hunted, but it barely makes a dent. We're in a small rural town where bow-hunting is allowed, but most hunters hit the outskirts and farmland for their deer. In this town there are two seed storing facilities that dump excess in piles. The birds and deer eat well. Still, they mosey through town foraging in everyone's gardens and teaching their young that this is a great place to be. Then there are those in town that actually feed them. It is rather fun to see them up close, I must admit. There is a small island in WA state where the deer(Black-tail)will walk up to the cars in line for the ferry looking for handouts. The people that live year-round on the island are very protective of 'their' deer.
My netting works because my raised bed is small, and if it's a bit of trouble to get to it, they'll just go across the street where the neighbor plants enough for everyone, lol. My garden just happens to be next to the woods where they live, so they check it out first.

"In fact, I am fencing an acre this winter with the 7.5 foot 14 gauge woven wire. "

Would like to see some progress pics/info on this project Mate! Just stewing over things to do as the time draws nigh.

One thing that I have noted is that the sq ft area ...

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has seen no pressure at all since installing the rabbit fence ... and them perhaps seeing the trellises and beds as an extra obstacle. So I am thinking of running this smaller fence around the perimeter and backing up 4-5 feet with pole bean, cucumber, tomato stuff as I already build fairly formidable rows of these with 8' posts.

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It does seem to be a mental thing and so I'm considering this aspect.