Winter Harvest

[Nyssa]

Unaffordable and impractical.

Nyssa, who needs to save money, not spend it

[Nyssa]

Yep, and if they can't see through it, the sun doesn't get through to the plants inside it.

Plus privacy fences are a no-no in the deed covenants here except for around swimming pools (which the water table here wouldn't allow anyway).

Nyssa, who had a suggestion of hanging Irish Spring soap around the garden, but is wondering if that would really work since the deer could always get around the soap one way or another

[Pavel314]

We have four foot fences around the sheep pastures and I've seen deer hop over them from a standing position nearby; looks like they just float over. I wonder if anyone has tried a double fence system so that they don't have enough room to make the leap.

[songbird]

...

i'm entirely with you in spirit as i am a very frugal person too by nature. in the case of the fence i'm putting up i will run me about $200 to enclose the north garden. the 6ft fence rolls of 100ft each will keep out rabbits, deer and groundhogs, the three major destructors and feeders upon my strawberry plants that i hope to restore to this garden once i get the fence up.

i value my time and efforts enough that i will put a fence up before i put any more efforts into planting that garden again. i can easily get that $ back in a few years by what strawberries i can pick and then put up as jam. i have a cousin who loves the jam and he gives Mom gift certificates each year so it is not a waste of $ or time. i'd grow them anyways as i really like fresh strawberries.

up until about 4yrs ago the deer didn't know the feast they were missing and had not raided the north garden that much. then one year a herd bedded down during a storm on that garden and they've been back through since. each year we hope the hunters will take out the ring-leaders and perhaps they thinned them out a lot this year because we've not seen them around much so far, but that can change...

it hasn't been too heavily snow covered yet so the deer have had plenty of browsing on the grasses in other places.

i've only scared one smaller deer from the back yard this winter and it did not like that it only had one escape route so i'm hoping it won't be back.

the cedar tree fedge (fence/hedge :) ) is sacrificial during a hard winter they'll really chomp away at it. i wish they'd come and trim the one tree that is overtaking the pathway, but they leave that one alone... lol ah well...

songbird

[songbird]

Nyssa wrote: ...

this is just a wire fence i'm putting up. nothing that blocks much light.

it works for a short time, like all deterrents, once they get used to it they'll come back. i've used all sorts of things and none work long or consistently enough. all you need is one failure and the deer can take out the garden for an entire season's production. which is why i try to plant a variety of plants and also different gardens so they don't always get everything, but for our veggie gardens the fences keep the worst of the critters out (not entirely because we have the wrong fence up for that area :( ).

i'm just tired of the efforts in this one garden to go to waste because it has very good topsoil (brought in when they built) and we don't really have any other garden soil like it so i want to put it back into production but i won't make the effort if i can't keep the deer/rabbits/groundhogs out i'm not letting that garden space go back to lawn.

songbird

[songbird]

Pavel314 wrote: ...

yeah, 4ft is not tall enough. there are various ways of doing deer proof fences. you can add tall poles with flags at the top and a 6ft fence and hope that works to make them think it is actually as tall as the poles/flags. :) if it doesn't then a wire along the top of the poles probably would.

putting large random rocks and other obstacles around the outside of the fence so they don't have any easy launching points will also help at least during the growing season. around here with it possible for there to be several feet of snow piling up i don't plan on anything anywhere to not be in peril through the winter months.

songbird

[Pavel314]

op over them from a standing position nearby; looks like they just float ov er. I wonder if anyone has tried a double fence system so that they don't h ave enough room to make the leap.

That was the basis for my double fence idea, to prevent them from having a launching point to get into the garden.

If we have trouble with the deer getting into my wife's garden, I'll just s it on the roof with my crossbow and harvest some venison.

Paul