WHY TAKE THE CHANCE? I USE MILORGANITE (FERT. MADE in Mich. FROM HUMAN WASTE) You can buy it at Lowes or Home Depot for about $8.00/40lb bag. It is a fertilizer (granula form) great for your flower beds and lawn and very inexpensive. I have used it for 6 years and the deer don't eat my plants. I sprinkle it throughout my beds and especially around the plants deer particular like in early Spring, again the middle of summer and again in the early and late fall. The deer still come into my yard but don't eat the plants. I see droppings and an iron bench is turned over from back hoofs catching it as they jump over. BUT the roses and hosta and daylilies are still with foliage and buds. Try it. You don't have to use it late fall but it protects the hosta for the next spring. I swear by MILORGANITE. I should do a commercial for the company. People keep telling me the deer will finally get use to it but so far it has worked for every season. Good luck

Made from human waste???? Hmmmm....I could save my money and make like a bear.... Nah....

Seriously...thanks for the suggestion. This is the first I have heard of this kind of product. I've heard of people using their own urine rather than coyote/fox/bobcat/wolf urine. (Presumably after eating lots of meat.) But the only thing I've read on the, er, "human compost" side has been in the form of warnings not to use it, presumably both for one's own health and the plants'. So at first blush, my intuition is that one is taking far more of a chance in handling anything made from human waste than in using pepper spray.

But doing some reading in previous posts (Milorganite seems to come up periodically), it looks as though it is, in fact, incinerated at temperatures that should make it pretty safe on the organic side, though some have raised concerns about non-living things that might make their way into the Milwaukee sewers, like industrial wastes. So I guess it's worth considering, especially if it keeps deer (and woodchucks too??) away from things for months, unlike things that need to be sprayed on after every rain -- while also not driving them completely from the yard. (I DO like to see fawns this time of year, and the deer earn their keep by eating the leaves the squirrels knock down from the elms.)

Deer don't mind hot peppers, they eat my Habaneros all the way to the ground. I am trying the Milorganite, but I'll be honest and say I bet nothing works. Eventually they learn to adapt. My friend uses deer out or something like that, you get it at Cabela's and it's the only deer repellent they sell. He swears by it. I might try that next.