I had heard that deer did not like tomatoes, but last year my neighbor said that they cleaned out his harden, tomatoes and all. I don't remember having deer to eat any of my tomatoes, or peppers, but I expect they would if there was not plenty of other things for them to eat. We also have neighbors that put out food for the wildlife.

I am sorry they got into your garden. My garden is so sorry this year that I expect a deer may think it would get sick eating from it.

Harriet, How perfectly lovely that you served your guests in true southern style with nice, southern food. I hope they joined you on the veranda for sweet tea and lemon icebox pie later in the evening while your outdoor Hunter ceiling fans stirred the air and kept it pleasantly cool in this beastly southern heat. We southern hostesses wouldn't want for our guests to suffer in the hot air, now would we? I applaud you for extending true southern hospitality even to the most, shall we say, unwelcome and uninvited guests.

Since we moved here in 1999, I have learned that deer will eat almost anything, including virtually every plant listed on all those lists of "plants that deer won't eat". I think they if they are hungry enough (or stubborn enough) they will eat anything and everything. In my garden, in past years, they have eaten everything down to the ground---not just the fruit, but the entire plants,----including tomatoes, peppers, pumpkins, okra, sunflowers and hollyhocks. Based on damage in past years, okra, sunflower plants and hollyhocks are their favorites, and they usually won't eat the pumpkin plants until they've devoured everything else. Leafy crops of any kind do not stand a chance and they also love asparagus plants and corn stalks/leaves.

We started with a short garden fence and, eventually finding it ineffective at keeping them out, we now have an 8'-tall fence that a friend refers to as "the prison garden fence". I hate the tall fence and don't think it is at all attractive, but it does what it is supposed to do---it keeps the deer out. And, if you ever leave the gate open and the deer make it inside the fence, it keeps them in when they see you coming and panic and run in circles inside the garden, trampling everything in the process, because they apparently cannot find the gate through which they originally made entry. If nothing else, this trains you to never, ever leave the gate open.

Larry, My garden is about as sorry-looking as yours. I'm just waiting for the tomatoes to finish producing fruit so I can yank out the ugliest tomato plants ever, now becoming increasingly infested with stink bugs. Of course, the stink bugs can turn beautiful tomatoes into ugly ones fast, so once the stink bugs are here in large numbers, you never get another pretty tomato for the rest of the summer.

I think we're all going to have lots of garden memories from 2015, and by that I really mean we'll have more bad memories than good ones.

Dawn

I bet deer are like goats. They may have their preferences, and they won't poison themselves. But that doesn't stop them from take a bite out of almost anything, and, to some degree, eating it. Goats have a liver approximately four times the size of a comparable size animal, which enables them to process a lot more toxins. I've butchered both deer and goats and can't say that I've noticed much difference in their anatomy.

George

Dawn, So glad to hear that the 8 ft fence has kept the deer out. We put up 8 ft in early June after the deer ate the leaves off most of the pole beans. Last year you may remember how I swore at the deer because we got only one picking of okra and pole beans and no return on the sweet potato plants because they kept them eaten off. And NOTHING worked as a deterrant. Not human and dog hair, not blood meal and not the entire bottle of Deer B Gone I sprayed one day on the sweet potatoes and okra. They ate those plants within 24 hours. So Harriet, if you want to keep gardening, think at least 8 ft of ugly fence. My DH even tied two pieces of rebar onto our garden gate and wired onto them to make our gate 8 ft high. Dawn did you take your gate up two?

Dorothy, Welcome to the Ugly Fence Coalition. (grin)

I've never had a deer jump it. I have had deer pace back and forth outside the fence while I was inside the garden but they'd never tried to come into the garden (by jumping or by open gate) while I am in it. Last year one did pace back and forth and blow air out through its nostrils trying to intimidate me into leaving the garden.

Last year we had a buck that some locals said was a 26-point buck (all I know is that he was big with an impressive rack of antlers) roaming our neighborhood in the fall. If ever there was a deer I feared might be big enough and strong enough to jump the fence, it would have been him. I never saw him even try. I hope your fence keeps the deer out. Some people insist it takes a 10' tall fence in some states, but 8' always has worked for me, and I've noticed the commercial hunting ranches on both sides of the Red River have 8' tall widlife fences to keep their hunting stock enclosed on their property.

The main gate is a Victoria style screen door that we once had on our house, so yes, it is about the same height as the fence. It is set into an entry arbor, with woven wire fencing over the part of the arbor above the top of the door to maintain the 8' height. We replaced the older cedar arbor last year with this arbor. The old arbor was native cedar logs with the bark still on and was shorter, more narrow and more rustic. This arbor is built of pressure-treated lumber and was built a bit wider and taller to better fit the fence. It has woven wire fencing attached to the two sides of the arbor, with honeysuckle climbing the fencing. I love it.

For the first time ever, I don't have to worry about the coons getting the corn. I think they found the old arbor easier to climb and never have managed to climb the new arbor, or at least, they haven't gotten a single ear of corn since we put up the new arbor with the new gate. I may have accidentally found a way to keep the coons out of the corn. My gate with the older arbor was about 4' tall, but the deer didn't come over it. (The coons did.) I think the deer were cautious about coming into the garden through the open area between the top of the 4' gate, and the roof of the arbor, which was only about 6.5' above ground. They could have come through that opening, but they didn't. It might be because the sides of the arbor restricted their view. I always heard that deer wouldn't come into an enclosure if they couldn't clearly see everything within it. I think the arbor blocked enough of their view to mostly keep them out (at least when the gate was closed). Maybe the arbor felt like it might be a trap.

Dawn