How to Keep Deer Out of Garden

Those pea pods look pretty tempting to the average adult deer, especially considering they eat 6-10lbs of food per day! Here's a few tips to keep deer out of your garden and those prize winning tomatoes safe from Bambi!

Instructions

1. First, make your property less attractive to deer all year round. Don't provide winter feed for wildlife and remove all un-harvested fruits and vegetables after the growing season. This will help prevent deer from including your property as part of their feeding territory come spring.

2. A less attractive yard may still not be enough. Your luscious legumes might still be too tempting. Your options to control deer will now depend on factors such as the deer density in your area and the type of deer damage in your garden. One effective control is a garden fence. The fence, to be effective, should be at least 8 feet high. Any lower and you're probably not going to get the results you need to protect the garden.

3. Deer repellent spray is another control option. There are some predator odor based deer repellents on the market. It's basically urine scent of a deer predator like coyotes, bobcats, or wolves. You can also make your own odor bags like hair bags. Yes, that's right hair bags!. If you fill mesh bags with human hair and place around perimeter of garden, the deer will avoid that area. Moth balls may be used also. The down side to all these is that it requires constant watch and reapplication of repellent.

4. Another good option for deer control is the scare device. Deer by nature are nervous little creatures that scare easily. A great scare device (that won't wake up you or your neighbors) is a water sprinkler. A scarecrow water sprinkler is motion activated and triggered when a deer enters the garden. It requires minimal set up and will help keep deer (and other critters) at bay. There are also scare devices that produce a loud sound or flashing lights that may also be an option depending where you live.

5. Yet another option is ultrasonic deer repellents. The ultrasonic deer deterrent is similar to that used on vehicles to deter deer.

6. These are just a few options to protect your garden from deer damage. Most often, a combination of controls works best especially when dealing with a large number of deer. The best way to protect your produce is to practice preventative deer maintenance all year round and implement your control choices at the beginning of the growing season. Good luck!