Subject: Re: How to deer-proof organically?

From: [email-masked] (Todd Jackson)
Date: 28 Jun 1996 23:38:05 GMT

>neighborhood deer who are impatiently awaiting this move..that is, 
>they're into our carrot tops, our strawberry plants, and we anticipate 
>their damage to increase with the orchard establishment.

This may sound gross, but deer hate and I mean HATE the smell of human urine.
Thats about as organic as you can get.

Regards.

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 29 Jun 1996 02:01:41 GMT

In <[email-masked]>, Caprice Rosato <[email-masked]> writes:
>We're in the process of establishing a fruit orchard (we plan to 
>transplant from our nursery rows this fall), and we have some 
>neighborhood deer who are impatiently awaiting this move.>

Caprice,

We garden organically too. Bambi and friends will eat almost anything that
isn't fenced!! We've been on our little plot for two years now and I've found 
that they:
	don't eat narcissis or daffodils. 
	don't care much for artichokes, but will sample them just to make sure.
	ADORE roses and the foliage of most fruit trees.
	eat the flowers off of daylilies and hyacinths.
	dislike squash plants, but pull them up while they're making sure.

I have heard that blood meal will sometimes keep them away, but if you're
in an area that has deer, you may run the risk of attracting bear, raccoons,
skunks, and other four-legged nuisances.

I honestly don't know of anything that will keep deer out except fencing.

-- Dian

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From: [email-masked]
Date: 3 Jul 1996 20:08:51 GMT

In <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Joel Clark) writes:

>We once put a twelve foot chicken wire fence around 15 acres.  The deer
>still got in.  I've seen frightened deer push a hole right through the
>chicken wire.<

One of the Agriculture Dept. people that we know says that deer, since they
can't leave archives for posterity, forget how to go over fences in a couple of
generations -- IF they don't see other deer doing it, and if they aren't
scared into doing it themselves.  I think it depends a lot on the size of the
fenced area. We have 80 acres of land, but most of it is timber and my garden
and orchard are small -- only about 40' by 60' each. The deer seem to think
those are traps of some sort, and haven't jumped into them. 

We also have about 30 fruit trees outside of the fenced orchard (apple, pear, 
mulberry, cherry) and they're sort of "self pruning." The mature trees don't
seem to suffer much; the deer take the suckers off of them and keep the 
foliage trimmed to about six feet up. I sure wouldn't put out a young tree
without protection though.

A lot of people around here put cages around their fruit trees, in lieu of
fencing a whole orchard. They sink four steel fence posts around each tree,
about three or four feet on each side of it, and then put  6' deer & rabbit fence
around the posts. Of course, that's only feasible if you have just a few trees.

-- Dian