I have heard conflicting report from my neighbors about deer. One neighbor (a big gardener and across the street from the woods) says he has never had issues with deer. Another neighbor, several houses away from the woods, says his fruit trees have had their leaves eaten by deer (never a problem with them eating fruit, he says).
Anyway, I understand a fence is the only real solution? Any other advice with deer? I guess they won't eat figs. Anything else? Am I going to have to waste all the front area of edibles?
What about giving them a hedge with thorns on the middle, stuff they may like on the outside and some stuff I like on the inside?
Any other ideas? I did notice deer prints in the front yard a few days ago. I haven't noticed them the last three years.
Also, if I do plant trees, how do I protect them when they are young?
Jade;
fence, fences; and another fence… Bullets don’t work; not only can’t you get them all, you can get into all kinds of trouble. Outside dogs work, but they’re a high price to pay, too. Perfumy soaps or blood meal & human hair work ... till they don’t.
There’s always a ‘new crop’ of deer migrating through, so what stops one -- another will likely ignore. And, they learn from ‘mom’ where to find what’s tender… I’d say in town they’re more opportunistic than purposeful; in the hills – they appear to strategize!
Though actually, they're kinda stupid… which makes it worse because they don’t recognize or understand real danger. Government Goats!
I fence in every young tree with four steel posts (tallest I can find/afford) and 2 inch chicken-wire wrapped from the ground up. You can tie off your scaffold limbs to the posts, forming perfect trees, and once the bulk of the foliage is beyond their easy reach, it’s good to remove & reuse. Though they can go up on their hind legs, I’ve rarely seen it, and I’ve watched 8 of them in the orchard with several bedding down every night.
I string a temporary hot-wire fence around my chosen garden locations. I’ve had them get tangled in it… but most often they’ll totally avoid it. But – it’s a test of my intelligence - too! I’ve got a fence charger than can run 20 miles of fence… told the farm guy I’d like one that would knock em down!
Otherwise, welcome to the club!
I once lived way out in the country and had deer trouble. I thought a barking dog would help. It was 2 weeks until the deer and the dog were playing tag. The deer would chase the dog and the dog would chase the deer. Eventually they would lay down about 20 feet apart and look at each other. So I thought a 6 foot fence would work. They easy jumped that. So I added 2 more feet on top, but left 6-8 inches of gap between the fences. They jumped through the fence and that gap. I tried a motion sensor radio and that worked for a week. Long story short, I moved to where there are no deer.
I have read they won't jump a double fence, FWIW.
Bill Mollison has this section of "Permaculture: a designer's manual", where he designs a double fence with a chicken run inside it, a trellis on top, and below ground hardware mesh to keep out burrowing creatures. Sounds like a nice stacking of functions to me, although I've never heard of anyone actually building one. Probably because it'd be a lot of work! You could design paddocks into the chicken run if it was long enough, so you wouldn't have to clean it out.
We may try the double fence approach. For now, we're just building the 6-foot woven wire fence and sheet mulching so there really won't be anything in the fenced area that the deer can't get everywhere else. We're also planning on using this fenced area for chickens. If the deer end up breaching the 6-footer after the trees, shrubs, etc. are planted and growing (we hope!), we'll build the second fence and use it as a chicken run too. Hopefully we'll luck out and not need it, but we wanted to build the option into the design just in case.
Idyllwild
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