This Means War
Yummy Peanut Butter! Delicious! Come! Eat! Enjoy!
The tops are eaten out of most of the green pepper plants. The sunflowers are eaten to the ground. One deer, according to the tracks, stepped between the strands of electric wire and helped himself to the product of hours of work (read: bending, kneeling, swatting gnats, sweating, miles of walking, carrying water, repairing worthless fence...you get the idea.)
What we need is a little operant conditioning. So I'm hoping the yummy lure (not well shown in the little picture here) will bring about a strong and lasting negative reinforcement for any deer who thinks I am in the business of growing deer salad.
Our neighbors we visited Monday evening have built crude 10 foot fences around their well-established garden plots. We can't do that. A 12 foot locust pole would have to be sunk 2 feet in the ground. Our garden, from necessity being the only flat sunny place that isn't a pure layer of river jack, is partly over the septic field. Tilling depth is fine. Deeper, we're messing with corrugated pipe. What are we going to do?
I can't tell you the sickening sense of being violated when you see those deep cloven prints across your deep-dug beds. (Oh my back!) "Ah, the tomatoes are looking good. Lettuce needs thinning already. Hmm. Better transplant the chard. AAAKKKKKKKK! My peppers!" If we had neighbors, they would have shared my moment of angst.
"Animal caught in a trap" they would have thought, looking up from their morning paper.
Comments
I can so identify with what you're feeling...altho so far it's only been my flowers and not any of the veggies. Those are behind a chicken wire fence; it's jumpable but the deer haven't found it.
Your poor pepper plants....and no sunflowers this year?? Those critters!!!
Posted by: Deb | June 22, 2005 8:19 AM
NEVER SEEN ONE OF THESE IN ACTION, BUT WHO KNOWS IT MAY STOP A DEER!
http://www.tesco-shopping.com/scarecrow.htm
Posted by: SCOTT | June 22, 2005 10:48 AM
Sorry to hear of your distress. I had to go out this morning to shoo a deer away from the plants in our front yard.
She did not give ground graciously. I had to follow her, shouting, "Out! Out!" very loudly until she went into the neighbor's yard and ate his flowers.
I think you should plant jalepenos next year and give them a spring tonic. :)
Posted by: David St Lawrence | June 22, 2005 11:40 AM
Hi Fred...
Just sent you a comment describing my frustration along similar lines and how Ive
finally (with great reluctance, and having tried EVERY method, product, gimmick to discourage them)
resorted to a county 'out-of-season' deer
control permit, the results of which all go immed
iately to the county (Albemarle) family Food Aid
program. It (my comment) came back with "Cooment
denied for Questionable Content."
How weird is that?
Live & let live!*
Marci
*as I try to explain to them, over & over
Posted by: marci | June 22, 2005 12:41 PM
hubby has wonderful luck with 2 hounds --1 walker, 1 redbone -- kenneled next to the garden and the chickens. no deer, rabbits, or squirrels yet this year, garden in same spot as last year, oh, and did i mention it's 45 feet from 4600 acres of timber? no? we do see deer in the woods all the time, even crossing the road, but none dare venture where hounds do bark.
Posted by: susannaheanes | June 22, 2005 3:05 PM
Our garden is doing so poorly that even the deer are taking pity on us, I think.
Rabbits did sneak in and eat all the lettuce earlier though. Even the roots.
Posted by: Rurality | June 22, 2005 5:44 PM
I read somewhere that deer are repelled by the scent of human hair. I have no idea if this is actually true, but you could start a "shave your head for my garden" campaign to find out.
Thanks for stopping by the Hinterlands--come again any time!
Posted by: caroline Kettlewell | June 22, 2005 8:53 PM
Human hair clippings stuffed into mesh bags and thrown around the garden will ward off the casual nibbler. Old shoes (the smellier the better) placed around the perimeter will help too. Good luck!
Posted by: sj | June 23, 2005 5:22 AM