doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Mildly OT: homegrown foods

In my experience the only thing that will deter deer is a fence. When I first started a dove patch when my boys were small I’d instruct them to pee on the edge of the field. Pretty effective deterrent. In terms of my garden, if my wife has to eat another okra/eggplant/tomato medley I’m headed to divorce court. Our spring here was hot and dry and the sweet corn did not do well. Sunflowers loved it however.

Oskar,
Green tomato/onion/jalapeno relish is really good in the wintertime on any vegetable, but especially black-eyed
peas.
Mike

That sounds good I'll have to give it a try.

My wife was tired of our numerous deer eating all sorts of her flowers and shrubs next to the house. On hope, she ordered a couple of spray bottles of Deer and Rabbit repellant from Amazon. It was called Liquid Fence Deer and Rabbit repelant . They say it works by smell, not by taste. Well, it worked well according to my wife. We have few rabbits, but lots of deer. The deer went somewhere else. It says it does not harm the plants.

6' fence is the only way we keep the deer and worse the javelina out of our garden and orchard. Jacks and cottontails can squeeze through the ranch wire fence but I got my 17HMR that really spins them good!!

Mike I have some tomatoes in pots on the side of my house. As you know I live in the city and those dang Javelina stop by about twice a month for a little harvest. Up until recently I had a jalapeño plant in a pot along side the tomatoes. They were so hot I couldn’t eat them, the Javelina also found them too hot to eat.
My tomatoes are about done for the summer, I hope to cut them back once the weather cools down some and get more up until we get a possible frost.

A 6' fence will keep zero percent of our deer out of plantings that need protecting here. An 8' fence isn't even 100% effective. Maybe our cotton, corn and peanut crops give the deer more ability to jump. I dunno.

With the right motivation full grown bucks can clear 10 foot of fence. The neighbor started at 8 ft around his garden, went to 10 ft. and the following year, took down the fence and planted sod.

The only plant the deer would for sure not eat were gardenias. I never had a fence, and quit a few years before the neighbor.

The deer got a lot of help from the woodchuck and the rabbits. I watched a black squirrel eat a cherry tomato on my deck rail yesterday, don’t know if he is a gourmet or if that is regular behavior from them.

Best,
Ted