How to Plant Food for Deer
Many nature lovers hang out feeders to attract colorful wild bird specimens and even fill pots with varieties of nuts to attract squirrels. If you want to attract deer to your backyard, you will need to plant their favorite food plants. It is best to plant a variety of foods that sprout at different times to keep the deer coming back for photo ops all year long. Oats, cowpeas and white clover are good choices for backyard food plots.
Other People Are Reading
Things You'll Need
- Soil pH testing kit
- Pitchfork or rototiller
- Lime or peat moss
- Cowpea seeds
- Metal garden rake
- Oat seeds
- Soaker hose
- White clover seeds
Instructions
-
-
1
Choose a sunny area with well-drained soil. Test the soil before planting using a soil testing kit purchased from a garden center. A soil pH around 6.0 should suffice for cowpeas, white clover and oats. If your soil does not meet the pH requirements, you will need to amend it.
-
2
Break the soil up in the food plot location using a pitchfork or rototiller. Add lime to the soil if the pH is below 6.0 or peat moss for soil above 6.0. Follow the label instructions for allocation amounts and application methods.
-
-
3
Rake the food plot with a metal garden rake to even out the soil. Broadcast the cowpea seeds in mid-September. Simply grab a handful of cowpea seeds in your hand and fan them out on the soil in front of you, covering every square inch. Give the soil another light raking. Broadcast the oat seeds over the soil in the same manner as the cowpeas. It's OK to overlap the seeds.
-
4
Water the cowpea seeds with a soaker hose after planting. Keep the soil moist at a 1-inch depth throughout the germination process, which should take eight to 10 days. Cease watering after the first hard frost and resume in the early spring when you will plant the white clover seeds.
-
5
Broadcast the clover seeds over the food plot after the final winter thaw. Maintain moist soil at a depth of 1 inch until germination, which should commence in two to three days. Provide the food plot with weekly waterings after the clover seeds sprout.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Planting cow peas in the early fall will provide food for the deer until winter. Once the cowpeas die off, the oats will carry the deer into spring. White clover will replace the oats and feed the deer through the summer, until the cycle of growth starts again.
Reseed the deer food plot in mid-September, following the above guidelines.
Do not overwater the deer food plot. Standing water can prevent seed germination. If the soil feels moist at a 1-inch depth, do not add more water.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit deer image by Henryk Olszewski from Fotolia.com
