All the Buzz at Honey B Farm: Oh! Those (blankety blank) Deer!!

It's been a real war with deer this garden season. We put up electric fencing, and it is powerful. But somehow the deer manage to either climb through or jump over the fencing and they have eaten about 50 or 60 cabbages so far!   That translates to over $120 worth of income lost to the deer just in cabbages alone. Plus they also ate two cherry trees, some green beans, pepper plants and eggplants.   They have also snipped off branches of our apple trees.   I simply cannot tolerate the loss of revenue from the deer! It truly is hard to foil deer, as they have hollow hairs and don't feel electric fencing too much unless they either sniff it with their nose and get zapped, or really get a good dose of the wires.   They are also excellent jumpers, so fencing has to be high.

It's not like they are starving - we have acres of woodland filled with plants and small twigs for them to eat. The deer hunters in the neighborhood have planted "deer plots" of corn and soybeans for them to eat. So why do they pick on my gardens? I didn't seem to have this problem last year, but a couple years ago they were sort of pesty. At that time I was able to foil them with CD's hanging on wires. As the CD's spin they catch the sun and moonlight and yard lighting and shine like strobe lights. They look like big flashing eyeballs to the deer and that seemed to scare them away.   Putting on CD's to the fencing is a chore to maintain, as they fall off or twist off, or wear out and need to be replaced. Sometimes the ties get so tangled in the wind they wrap around the wire and are useless.   But this year I am trying them again!    I can also put foil strips on the hot wire and when the deer come to investigate the foil, they may get zapped.

I can start some new cabbage plants, as they are only 50 day variety. The kraut cabbages are 100 days, but I should be able to plant some in the greenhouse, as this late variety can take a little frost and I can harvest things in the greenhouse until mid November.   It's just a shame that I have already lost hundreds of dollars of income due to the deer's appetite!
Harold put barbed wire fencing about 6 feet up, plus several layers of hot wire between the top and bottom. If the deer try to jump over the fence, I truly hope they "split some hide" (oh - did I say that? Yes! This is war!) I will also staple white grocery bags to posts in the garden, which sometimes scare them away. If dogs weren't such a bother and expense to keep, I would get a nice big dog to chase deer away.    But high vet bills is something I can't afford right now.   Sometimes my cats chase deer away, especially my cat Fluffy who absolutely hates deer in the yard, but cats are good mousers, not really good deer chasers.   Most of the time the deer think my cats are just playing and they chase the cats back!

This is all so very discouraging! I work so hard, only to have my garden produce destroyed by stupid deer.   It is especially challenging since we are out in the woods.   We shall see who wins.    This fall I hope the deer hunters wipe out a goodly number of deer because it seems like we are being overrun with them. Dare I say I hope they shoot every last one of them? Well, maybe not - but they do need to thin out the herd quite a bit.

I have tied CD's about every 10 feet all around both gardens. They twist and turn and shine and reflect moonlight and yard lighting to look like giant strobe lights. It used to scare the deer until they figured out these things wouldn't hurt them. I haven't used these for a few years, so I hope the new batch of deer either don't know what these are, or forgot about them.

The top wire of the electric fencing is sharp barbed wire. Hopefully when the deer try to jump over the fence they will snag their hide on this.

The top barbed wire line is about 6 or so feet high. Deer can probably jump that high, but the posts don't come any higher!

On a positive note, I DO have some lovely flowers this year, and we have a lot of gooseberries growing. I hope the birds will not eat all the gooseberries because they make a wonderful jelly.

Lots of gooseberries growing on the four bushes that I have. When the gooseberries turn pink, they are sweet and ready to eat just as they are, or juiced up into jelly.