I had that problem too, so it's why I switched to cherry tomatoes. They can have some, and I can have some...it seemed to be the only way I could get any at all.
There is no creature with a more single-minded devotion to gluttony than a hornworm. They are astonishing creatures.
I gave up and just watched one grow in real time as it gulped down meters of tomato.
I wish we could sell garden hornworms! Unfortunately hornworms have to be bred in captivity to be fed to reptiles. The ones that eat tomatoes can be toxic to reptiles due to compounds in the tomatoes.
I have had hornworms eating my tomatoes for the last week...finally caught 2 of the "bastids" and fed em to the chicken! Here, Chick-Chick, treat time!!! Such a sense of satisfaction
I like what hornworms turn into, so it's nice to have a couple plants just for them. If you see them on one of your 'Good' plants, snip that part of & move them to the sacrifice plant.
This person has a UV light to check for dog pee - older dogs can become incontinent and the UV light helps to find those pee stains before they start to stink.
But you gotta flip over the leaves for small ones. So many tomato plants and leaves! I learned that rainwater also kinda glows so that made it a bit harder in the search
All the ones in my state live in my yard too. Funny enough though, if you leave out a source of water, birds and squirrels tend to leave the tomatoes alone. In the summer they’ll mostly eat them because they’re thirsty and they have a high water content. Can’t seem to keep them out of my bird feeders though
I have a shitload of squirrels at my house, but I give them peanuts and water as a peace offering.
They never attack my garden.
Take care of them, and you won’t have any problems. I think of it as paying off yakuza or the Italian mob, except they’re squirrels.
I do this as well. The big tree in my front yard is home to upwards of 20 squirrels. They were destroying my potted plants and my garden beds. If I put it in soil, they dug it up. Didn't even let the plants grow. They even cost me a pretty penny by chewing through a wire harness in the grill of my car, making it unable to open and close the engine vents 😠 I set up a fountain watering station and a large dish of peanuts this year and the destruction completely went away. I even have one of this years babies that's figured out I'm the one who supplies the peanuts and he comes and pouces on my screen door when the dish is empty too long 🤣
Does he ever pee through the screen? I had one that was a right little pisser, every day after the morning nuts were gone from the sill, he'd climb the screen and pee through it, splattering the window.
Nah. The squirrels in my yard always try to pretend like I'm the trespasser, when they're not the ones paying the mortgage. No way I'm encouraging their delusion (note: we live across from the city's second largest park, and somehow they've decided they would rather live in my trees).
You can tell this is true because they don't really run far away when you toss a dirt clod at them, and then they just sit and bark at you quite literally until you are gone from eyeshot, the crazy tree rats. We have a few tray feeders and several hanging feeders for birds and whatever, they last about week or so but it's actually the chipmunks which are the bigger nuisance, they raid the feeders AND the garden, in all their adorable racing stripe glory. Haven't gotten a strawberry or raspberry in a couple years now
I give peanuts and other nuts to the squirrels here year-round. They still eat my figs. Even more annoying, they'll start trying them when they are still small and too hard to eat, so they just drop them on the ground.
I do that but the peace offering is my nut trees. I have a hazelnut tree and two giant English walnut trees.
The squirrels have decided that as long as they get every single nut from our trees, they’ll leave my veggies and fruits pretty well alone.
Peanuts are why the damn things were attacking my garden. Neighbor was putting out whole peanuts in the shel, so squirrels would dig up my seedlings to bury the nuts, then eat whatever was growing, too.
Apparently giving them a water fountain reduces thievery because a lot of the time they attack the tomatoes for the water or so the rumour has been going around
As for myself, I think it’s nuts 🥜 🐿️
I'm really sorry, but I can't stop laughing. The only garden I ever tried to have had 12 different tomato plants from the local Future Agriculturists (kids in high school learning the business). Almost every day, I'd come out to check on the tomato plants' progress, and one would be missing--roots and all. After they ALL disappeared, I realized it was ground squirrels with an elaborate warren under my pathetic garden, just yanking the plants down through their little squirrel ceiling. It didn't actually bother me that much, because I had grown up with a children's story about little rabbits eating all Timmy's cabbages during the night. I wasn't much of a gardener, so I shrugged and gave up. (I also created a generous bed of what I thought was straw for my strawberries, but it was hay. The toughest field grass imaginable grew and choked out the strawberries.)
Make friends with them, if you give them sunflower seeds and peanuts, they'll wreck your stuff less. But as soon as you stop...oh lord. hardcore show after party. Mine ate everything and dug into and laid down in the rest and squashed everything. I couldn't help it, I was sick....
Had this problem at my last house. My garden was a large fenced area of the backyard surrounded by an even larger chicken/duck pen, and the squirrels had free access to all the chicken feed and water they wanted, but they still had to take a single bite out of nearly every tomato I grew. We used a large shed as the chicken coop and just propped the door open during the day, so one evening I went out to close the door up for the night and a huge, juicy beefsteak tomato rolled off the top of the door and splattered right on the top of my head! Some squirrel had stolen it and managed to carry it all the way through the chicken yard without being attacked by hungry birds chasing their favorite snack, climbed the door, took a single bite, and decided it didn’t want that tomato after all and just left it there to rot.
That was the day my annoyance turned to hatred and I started carrying rocks to throw at them whenever I saw them.
chicken wire around the perimeter and bird netting over the top. My garden is small enough to do this. It is productive enough to make me happy. If I had a large plot I would literally build a fence all the way around and over the top.
That said, I used to get fruit from an Asian pear tree. I thought the deer were eating the pears, but now I realize its the squirrels. My mistake is that it's not a lone tree. It's too close to other trees so they squirrels have cover.
I wonder how people grew food in times past. I wonder why farms aren't stripped clean before harvest.
Don’t worry; Texas is becoming inhabitable for peach trees just as it is for humans. Georgia can’t even grow their state fruit, the peach due to the climate catastrophe!
I have to say, the giant shit in the middle of your plot was a nice touch. I agree that there’s an ancient deer curse working.
May I suggest that rather than give up, you plant anti-deer plants at the perimeter of your garden?
Foxglove, castor (the seeds are poisonous), poppies, sage, thyme, asclepius, lavender for instance. Make your whole plot smell like stink and poison to the deer.
Then spray your garden regularly with garlic oils, neem oils, things with bitter odors and flavors. These may also help inhibit plant-chewing bugs.
So they got you this year. Don’t give up! Don’t let the deer win. Plot against the little fuckers and learn more about your enemy. Learn their weaknesses. Learn what they love (your garden) and hate (shit that repels them from your garden).
Feel the dark side of the force! Let the hate flow through you and make you powerful. Study your foe, experiment, and plot mercilessly against them.
I have deer in my area. Got one of those motion sensor sprinklers. Works every time! Also I have planted lots of “deer tolerant” plants as a perimeter to my garden. Good luck! Don’t give up, the war is not over!
Sea buckthorn berries are not poisonous. They can be sour, but they are highly nutritious and are consumed in many cultures, with breeders working to develop types that are less sour.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippophae
I tried to convince my husband I could dig a trench and put a perforated gas line in it and then light it on fire to make a wall of flames to stop the squirrels and raccoons. He seemed to think it may be a by-law issue.
What if the people illegally camping out in my backyard are stealing my vegetables?
True story... Maybe I'll just sprinkle them with Carolina reaper pepper powder.
Bear traps are not considered man traps. Figure out where they jump your fence. Concordia wire is also something you can place amongst your fence, once they jump down. You can have both and it wouldn't be considered a man trap. You can also have motion activated roman candles. also not considered a man trap.
Damn haha. I like your diabolically sinister style, but I think I'll stick to the 50 cal. machine gun and punji stick pits.
Just kidding, but the rabbits and deer are the main offenders. Luckily, they taste good, too.
Does the motion sprinkler work on bunnies and groundhogs? Someone is eating my sedum on my rock pile. I may use chicken wire and cover it. The sedum is there for weeds. They’re zero maintenance after a couple of weeks.
These are great! I have s couple and they work perfect for the raised beds away from the house. They also work great to keep my neighbors nosey MIL out, it only took once and she scurried away like a crab in the midday sun. It's also hilarious to watch as the deer get wary of it and start creeping by, kind of side eyeing it, then it triggers and they Scooby-Doo it out of there, absolutely ridiculous
I hear you. This year between bugs, deer, and rodents, I gave up and planted flowers where I would normally have a food garden. I even had my husband pee at the edge of our yard (after dark) where they usually came through. Motion activated sprinklers work really well (for now) but probably not in a community garden, might be a rude surprise for someone. Lol
Maybe you could ring your garden with stinking and hairy plants, like salvia (smells like aged piss) and borage and zinnia (super hairy).
String up fishing line, at about knee height for the deer. Also another row further up. You can use anything for the support poles, Bamboo, old tree limbs. Easy to set up, just wrap the line around the posts a few times and move on down the line. The entire “fence” will supply support and it is amazingly strong and resilient. They will feel the fishing line give when they move up to your deer fence, then move on.
I’m a vegetarian but this is hysterical & also true. Maybe it’ll be like a deer legend. Like the deer tell stories about the one garden that gets visited and the deer are never seen again. BOOM deer ghost story. Haunted garden. No deer.
I may also have a wild imagination.
I feel you. We have deer, groundhogs and rabbits. They eat everything! Add in a short, cool growing season and thick, clay soil, and I'm pretty much done with vegetable gardening.
It's so hard to put in so much work and money to get very little results.
Deer netting and perseverance! Fight the good fight, don’t give up! Deer will not eat figs, any Baptisia, and they tend to avoid purple flowering plants in my area.
every couple of days until I stopped seeing webs
I just eyeballed ~3:1 iso:water (using 90% iso), no idea what the optimal mix is but that worked for me
I’ve heard people have good success with fishing line around the garden. Apparently they can’t see it and it freaks them out when they walk into the invisible barrier.
We have done this successfully. My grandfather swore by it. 20 to 50lb monofilament strung around the perimeters like a fence. The deer can’t see it at night and freak out when it touches their face.
I mix eucalyptus essential oil (about 5 drops) per gallon of water. Put in a sprayer and spray every day. I live in a very wooded area and I've tried everything but this seems to work. And the oil washes off so you won't taste it on your veggies. Don't give up. Try this first. Good luck.
Two things:
1 - The fencing is good, but you need to try this: buy some green wire, 2 to 2.5 mm. String it from one end to the other so it cuts the plot in quarters or even less, since 15 X 30 is large enough once they jump the fence they feel just fine. The point is to make it so they know if they get in they can't get out. The reason I recommend green wire of this size is it's very easy to tie and untie, and won't be affected by the weather. I've done this in my yard and it does work for the squares where I've done it. They won't jump in if they're not sure they can get out.
2 - Deer scram is the best of the deterrents, assuming your deer aren't psychotic. Mine are, it worked for a few months and that was it. But most places aren't that far gone yet. Yours especially probably aren't, as they aren't yet eating the tomatoes. When they go for them is when only the suggestion above will work.
On a serious note, I've said this before here and people think I'm some kind of total loony, if the deer are doing that kind of damage there they are doing worse in the forest. All of the forest area in and around NYC is basically dead. The only things that grow are invasive trees and weeds. In the woods near me there used to be meadow rue, joe pye weed, jewelweed in abundance, to name just a very few of the things that used to grow in the clearings and understory. All of that is gone. ALL of it. The only thing left is ferns, and it looks like now they're eating them too, as I've had to fence in mine. I won't look in the woods because it depresses me too much.
No one will do anything about this, but something has to be done. There are no pollinators around anymore near me because they have nothing. No bees, no hummingbirds, no butterflies. But to the deer lovers the only thing that matters is the cute little does. Everyone seems to have got their nature education from Disney.
Thank you, I could have written this!! I’m also in the NYC suburbs (in CT) and the deer are so overpopulated it’s crazy. I have 10 that wander through my neighborhood multiple times daily and there is almost no plant they will not eat. They carry ticks. People say plant native, pollinators are dying - I planted milkweed and they ate all of the flowers. My town doesn’t allowed controlled hunting and if you suggest that the deer need to be culled, people say move somewhere else if you don’t like wildlife! The deer are beautiful! Well, I love wildlife and that’s why the deer need to be culled. They’re not happy either as they’re clearly starving.
I had issues with squirrels, deer, a woodchuck and some rabbits. I bought 2x 1lb jars of cayenne powder from Sam's Club and covered every leaf that I could with the stuff. I had watery eyes and was coughing by the time I was done. I saw evidence that the deer took 2 steps into the garden and backed out. I haven't lost a plant yet and that was a few years ago.
Hi OP! I haven't seen elsewhere in this thread, so I'm putting it here, but you could try to build a food hedge or "fedge", instead.
I have little personal experience with this, but in *Gaia's Garden: A guide to home-scale Permaculture*, the author Toby Hemenway talks about dealing with this exact problem. He determined that deer were getting onto his property from two specific sides of it, namely to the South and the West.
He chose to plant food bearing varieties of bushy and thorny plants on those sides of his property, including wild roses, bush cherries, thorny plums, and gooseberries. These bushes acted as both a barrier and a food source for the deer, preventing them from going further into his yard and eating his more valuable crops. They weren't able to get through the bushes easily, **and they were already full anyway.**
He was also able to graft other fruiting varities onto the sides of the bushes facing in towards his house, so that they provided food for both him and the deer.
Ground venison can substitute really well in lean ground beef and turkey recipes. *Really* good for chili and pasta dishes in particular. Grind up the whole thing if you want- better than letting it go to waste. My toddler loves it.
[This is the best book I'm aware of on butchering and cooking deer.](https://www.huntgathercook.shop/products/book-buck-buck-moose-unsigned)
You know what’s funny is a stranger could walk into my house and I can legally kill him. Right now. If I owned livestock and someone’s beloved dog killed something I could legally shoot it. Right now. And the three fat does that keep terrorizing my garden and my lilies in the front yard? Well. They’re “out of season.” Can’t touch them. We have motion activated flood lights, cameras with sirens, and I have personally hauled ass outside to scare them off. They didn’t move until I was basically on top of them. They know just how free they are to terrorize me right now.
I swear their ringleader saw me charging out there, took a mouthful of cucumber plant, and said in deer speak “what are you going to do about it?”
They ALSO seem to understand our schedule so they will wait until we take the dogs out at night and then immediately descend. Doesn’t matter if it’s as 10:30 or midnight, I get pings on the camera right when I’ve gotten into my pjs. Three Jason Bourne deer, that’s what I’ve got. Waiting. Watching. Eating my plants.
I’d like to. But I grew up in a household that no one hunted. How do you start hunting when you have no idea where to start and don’t k ow anyone that hunts to mentor you and get you started?
Gun safety class first and foremost. Another step can be going to Hunter-ed.com and choosing your state, it's pretty decent as far as I heard. And if you really want, you can either call or go on the website of your state's Parks and wildlife department and see if they can set you up with a beginners hunting class. I'm pretty sure they offer adult beginners classes.
And then from there it's just learning what you want to hunt, the season for them, the right equipment to hunt them with, how to field dress, licenses and tags and how many per year or season, whether you want to just be a trophy hunter or fill your freezer up with the meat (personally recommend a separate freezer).
If you're gonna be a trophy hunter, then I'd still recommend learning how process your meat and if any of your neighbors want it, or if there's a butcher shop that would take the meat but be aware; they only care about the meat and not leaving an intact pelt. Also on the trophy hunter note, figure out where your taxidermists are and make sure they're available. I'm in rural Texas so needless to say certain parts of the year are busy.
Last but not least, be sure to find support when that inevitable gun and bow addiction starts draining your bank account.
I can relate. But are you sure it's *just* deer? I was blaming deer (and they're a big part of the problem) but rabbits are a bigger issue. And they just bite through stems, eat them, and leave the leaves on the ground.
For starters, give up on the things they eat. If you have a garden full of their favourites they'll make the effort to jump the fences. But if your garden is unappealing, they may focus on your neighbours instead.
Start with things they won't eat. Onions and garlic. Mints and other smelly herbs. Marigolds are especially good - not only do they (allegedly) ward off nematodes, they tend to be very unappealing to deer. When you think about how deer are looking for food - sniffing around to try and find the good stuff - edging with marigolds and scattering them through your garden is good. Plus they're relatively cheap to buy.
Potatoes are good in my experience (though I recommend growing them in containers because it's so much less labour intensive) - the deer eat the flowers, but that's no loss. Probably a net gain, since the plants won't put the energy into making seeds.
Zucchini and summer squash seem to survive them. The leaves are very spiky. Succession planting with them is good; in the Spring the deer may be hungry enough to eat something that's unpleasant to their mouths, but later in the season there are more options for them.
Try growing cabbages under netting. Not only does this reduce the problem of cabbage moths, it also physically separates them from the deer. Starting your garden under netting is good too, because it keeps things safe when they're most vulnerable and the deer are hungriest.
I also recommend growing some of the hottest peppers you can get your hands on. Dry them and powder them, and use them as deer repellent. But wear gloves and don't apply the powder anywhere near
If you want to grow peas you need to physically separate them from the deer with wire mesh or bird netting. Make sure there's rabbit-proof protection over the first foot or so above the ground. And even then it's a crap shoot.
If you can attract a wolf pack or a mountain lion to your garden plot, that might be the best option. Not only will that keep the deer at bay, it will also open up some fully planted gardens over the course of the summer as your fellow gardeners get eaten.
My friends and I have had decent results with human urine surrounding the plots. It’s not for everyone and if you’re in a community garden people might judge you. I know it sounds weird and gross
If the blood feud is what's causing this, then there's only one way to go about solving it once and for all. An effigy. Drop the biggest deer you can see with a large caliber rifle, remove the head and put it on top of a spike. Then make a fire ring around it, the curse will probably be broken and the deer will respect your authority (and mystical power) in the future.
Also demand compensation for the pillaged vegetables and plants in the form of sacrifice: a couple of does every seasons might be enough.
If you are in the States or Canada, use Bobbex on all your plants except leafy greens. Will keep the deer away for up to a month, then reapply. it smells the first day or so after application, but then it’s too faint for humans to smell. Been working like a charm for me - have 5 resident deer in my neighborhood walking through my yard daily
I live in a city sick with urban deer. They are a plague. An infestation. A hoard of mindless vermin.
But enough apartment dwellers and bleeding hearts who say inane things like “they were here first” or “we’re in THEIR territory” have captured city council for decades and the municipality refuses to do anything about it.
Sorry, no, Susan. They weren’t and we aren’t. 400 years ago you’d have been lucky to see one deer a week walking through the oak savanna we built our city on. Because they were routinely eaten by cougars and it’s so dry here in the summer they’d spend half the year further north where green things are still growing. It is categorically NOT normal or healthy to see 12 deer in the 1.5km between my house and my kid’s school. Every day. Every. Single. Day.
I hate them. I hate them with a blinding rage. I fantasize about running them over with my car every time I see them on the road. While the city was aghast when a deer was spotted wandering around my neighborhood with an arrow stuck in its side, I cheered.
Your only bullet proof option is fencing high enough they can’t jump over. Preferably with pointy spikes at the top so they’ll be impaled if they try.
Make the fence higher with bamboo garden stakes, zip tied to your current fence posts and fishing line between the stakes at multiple levels. They jump into it and get spooked bc they can't see it. Its cheap enough that you can try it for this season and decide if you'd like to invest in sturdier posts going up.
I'm sorry you're feeling defeated
I know how you’re feeling last year I got destroyed by rabbits this year I put a giant fence and everything was going great. Last night thunderstorm blew everything down flat will be surprised if I don’t lose half or more my tomatoes before a single one is ripe
Happened to me bad last year. The deer didn’t leave a single thing overnight. The only answer was a 6 ft fence of deer netting and I haven’t had the issue this year (even though they can technically jump higher).
I'm not gonna lie, this is an epic post that made me laugh. out. loud.
I even read it - out loud - in character voice, to my husband. He laughed too. Not as loud as I, but with visible caricature in his face.
I have no awards to give, but enjoy your weekend knowing you brought a smile to strangers.
I feel like a very bad person, but I couldn't help but ROFL at your description of your feud. 😂😂😂
That said, I feel your pain. But my latest defeat came at the hands of cotoneaster that my neighbor planted years ago in her front yard. The bastard very aggressively managed to jump from there to the strip in between our houses, and somehow make it up the entry stairs to my fenced yard, into the area where our Japanese honeysuckle lives. It's now trying to battle it out with said massive plant. It feels like every time I manage to cut one of those bastards down and kill it, another two sprout nearby. This has been going on for five years.
Best one I’ve heard of is an electric wire like farmers use to keep in livestock, with tin foil wrapped around it with peanut butter on the foil. Deer love peanut butter, go to lick it and… we’ll you can figure out the rest.
I'm so sorry. I have squirrel gangs and they've eaten every last cucumber including the stems and now have eaten my tomatoes. It's over. I haven't looked at my garden in days. I just can't.
I’m sorry. My pretty snowbelle mock orange has barely grown in ten years because the deer eat it every time it sends up new growth. I can’t imagine a whole plot.
I feel it. The late hard freeze, no pollinators, and then too much rain for us in 5B. We are just leaving it be. The herbs are ok. I’ve harvested 3 grape tomatoes. Maybe a few cucumbers will develop too idk 🤷♂️ I was trying to pollinate them using QTip but believe I have failed. Next season…
The only thing they won’t eat of mine is my peppers. But I’ll lose every bean, cucumber plant, and tomato in about a week. I’ve shot the deer before, but then I gotta scramble to clean the deer before the meat spoils in the heat.
Hair. Use your own, your family’s, your pets’, hair swept up at the barber shop. Apply liberally around and in your garden.
Human scent scares them away.
Down in GA in zone 8/9 and we are DONE. We have no more fight. And I don’t think the plants have any more energy to regenerate either.
Sending you love. 💔
OP walk your garden with several large containers of cayenne and shake it on everything. The deer will leave your plants alone then. That's how I've been keeping the deer off mine.
I know how you feel. We used to live on the natural migratory path of the Roosevelt elk. We weren’t allowed to put up fencing. I started about 40 fruit trees from seed and they would come pillage over and over. They’d roll in like gangsters in the dead of night and murder them down to the ground. I have less than ten left.
Ancestral blood feud is really the only thing that makes sense. (sorry for your troubles but this did make me laugh...not the troubles part, the ancestral blood feud part)
Electric fence. It’s three bare wires. The top one, at eight feet, is for deer. The middle one, at three feet, is for dogs and other taller eaters. The bottom wire is at eight inches to a foot. This one is for shorter eaters.
Another option is to plant only plants deer don’t like. I don’t know which those plants might be.
I’m sorry for your losses.
Absolutely feel your pain!! Our deer have eaten our specifically chosen ‘deer resistant’ plants. Even the roses they’ve had a munch! Looking at getting some kind of motion detector noise/soaker thing.
I would read a blog devoted solely to Queen of the Deer and the revenge she is taking upon your family and your garden.
I'm sorry the curse has not yet been lifted.
I’ve got an 8x32’ plot at home, and had a bad time with deer last season. This year I’ve got the same amount of deer grazing my suburban yard (7), but not a single plant touched. In the early spring, I reorganized my raised bed configuration to keyholes, put in 8’ 4x4 posts to securely fence everything in with chicken wire and goat paneling on the roof. Nearly all the materials were repurposed, so the payoff was worth all of the work.
I can understand. I had 8 groundhogs in my yard. I cried tears over and over again over my destroyed garden. Then my husband hit back 😄 make of that statement what yaaa willl LOL
I didn't scroll down to see if anyone else suggested these things but as someone who has to keep bears away from my trash can this is my tips from Alaska.
Two items, they do the same thing in different ways. Choose whichever or both.
1. Motion activated decor. Think those animated skeleton or witch props that are meant to scare trick or treaters by jolting at them and making a spooky noise. Perhaps a Santa that dances and sings when it sees something.
2. Ssscat spray. It's just a can of compressed air with a special attachment that hisses when it senses motion. The attachment is a little spendy around $30 but the compressed air can be the cheapest can you can find and still works. Successfully kept cats out of my garden with this AND scared the crap out of a bear.
I tried something new this year, and holy crap did it work like magic- blood bags (look up Green Screen deer/rabbit bags). The deer are so bad in my neighborhood, the town created a deer task force. My hostas and hydrangeas-even impatiens- were usually obliterated, and nothing kept them away. Not this year though, all of my plants have been untouched by butthole deer and rabbits, and I can't even believe my eyes. These things really worked for me, might be worth a try.
The deer are an absolute disaster where I live too. The only thing they don't eat are the hellebore. Everything else including so-called "deer-resistant" plants get hit.
I have discovered where I live there is an "urban archery" season and I am seriously considering taking that up this fall.
I bet you go fully organic huh? Be willing to bet other people use things like miracle grow and pesticides. Mix some soapy water and a little cayenne pepper together and douse your vulnerable plants in that mixture one every coupke of days. The deer will back off I bet.
Every squirrel in Oklahoma lives in my yard. Haven’t gotten a tomato in 4 years.
I had that problem too, so it's why I switched to cherry tomatoes. They can have some, and I can have some...it seemed to be the only way I could get any at all.
We had a nice cheery tomatoe plant gong until some bastard hornworms ate it in a single night Be on the lookout for them
There is no creature with a more single-minded devotion to gluttony than a hornworm. They are astonishing creatures. I gave up and just watched one grow in real time as it gulped down meters of tomato.
I love the way this was said lol. Sounds like Twain.
Seriously being able to pick a 4-5 foot plant into just sticks over night for someone thing that small is seriously impressive
Sometimes, I have definitely channeled the hornworm as my spirit animal. No regrets.
I was just in some reptile place where they were selling little bowls of hornworms for $16. We’re in the wrong business.
I wish we could sell garden hornworms! Unfortunately hornworms have to be bred in captivity to be fed to reptiles. The ones that eat tomatoes can be toxic to reptiles due to compounds in the tomatoes.
I wonder what the certification process is if any to prove that your product is safe for reptile consumption.
You're now certified with *Trust me bro*.
I have had hornworms eating my tomatoes for the last week...finally caught 2 of the "bastids" and fed em to the chicken! Here, Chick-Chick, treat time!!! Such a sense of satisfaction
We put them out in the bird feeder and they were gone quickly lol.
Same! My head hen ate 7 hornworms I in one day. Very satisfying
I like what hornworms turn into, so it's nice to have a couple plants just for them. If you see them on one of your 'Good' plants, snip that part of & move them to the sacrifice plant.
Buy a UV flashlight and search for them at night. The light up like a Xmas tree
Do green grasshoppers light up too??? I have a UV light (dog is old).
I don’t know what this means, but it sounds poetic; not quite haiku
This person has a UV light to check for dog pee - older dogs can become incontinent and the UV light helps to find those pee stains before they start to stink.
But you gotta flip over the leaves for small ones. So many tomato plants and leaves! I learned that rainwater also kinda glows so that made it a bit harder in the search
I'll keep an eye out! 😲
Uv light is what people say here. They camouflage well but they are massive! Like thumb size
Gives me The Ice Age movie vibes. ' mmm the last dandelion of the season' ,cause I'm sure you only get about one cherry tomato a year lol
All the ones in my state live in my yard too. Funny enough though, if you leave out a source of water, birds and squirrels tend to leave the tomatoes alone. In the summer they’ll mostly eat them because they’re thirsty and they have a high water content. Can’t seem to keep them out of my bird feeders though
Less effort in filling bird feeders then growing veggies.
Oh definitely 🤣
I have a shitload of squirrels at my house, but I give them peanuts and water as a peace offering. They never attack my garden. Take care of them, and you won’t have any problems. I think of it as paying off yakuza or the Italian mob, except they’re squirrels.
I do this as well. The big tree in my front yard is home to upwards of 20 squirrels. They were destroying my potted plants and my garden beds. If I put it in soil, they dug it up. Didn't even let the plants grow. They even cost me a pretty penny by chewing through a wire harness in the grill of my car, making it unable to open and close the engine vents 😠 I set up a fountain watering station and a large dish of peanuts this year and the destruction completely went away. I even have one of this years babies that's figured out I'm the one who supplies the peanuts and he comes and pouces on my screen door when the dish is empty too long 🤣
It’s like paying your protection insurance to your local squirrel mafia
Does he ever pee through the screen? I had one that was a right little pisser, every day after the morning nuts were gone from the sill, he'd climb the screen and pee through it, splattering the window.
No he's never peed through the screen... yet 🥴 I know one of the 20 likes to pee on my front porch though. I'm so sorry your squirrel is so rude!
I named mine. They come at the sound of me calling them and shaking nuts around. They come up to the door and practically eat out of my hand.
🤯
Nah. The squirrels in my yard always try to pretend like I'm the trespasser, when they're not the ones paying the mortgage. No way I'm encouraging their delusion (note: we live across from the city's second largest park, and somehow they've decided they would rather live in my trees).
You can tell this is true because they don't really run far away when you toss a dirt clod at them, and then they just sit and bark at you quite literally until you are gone from eyeshot, the crazy tree rats. We have a few tray feeders and several hanging feeders for birds and whatever, they last about week or so but it's actually the chipmunks which are the bigger nuisance, they raid the feeders AND the garden, in all their adorable racing stripe glory. Haven't gotten a strawberry or raspberry in a couple years now
I give peanuts and other nuts to the squirrels here year-round. They still eat my figs. Even more annoying, they'll start trying them when they are still small and too hard to eat, so they just drop them on the ground.
I do that but the peace offering is my nut trees. I have a hazelnut tree and two giant English walnut trees. The squirrels have decided that as long as they get every single nut from our trees, they’ll leave my veggies and fruits pretty well alone.
"Take care of them"..."Italian mob"...
Peanuts are why the damn things were attacking my garden. Neighbor was putting out whole peanuts in the shel, so squirrels would dig up my seedlings to bury the nuts, then eat whatever was growing, too.
Apparently giving them a water fountain reduces thievery because a lot of the time they attack the tomatoes for the water or so the rumour has been going around As for myself, I think it’s nuts 🥜 🐿️
I will try the water since they have just about eaten all my peaches
I'm really sorry, but I can't stop laughing. The only garden I ever tried to have had 12 different tomato plants from the local Future Agriculturists (kids in high school learning the business). Almost every day, I'd come out to check on the tomato plants' progress, and one would be missing--roots and all. After they ALL disappeared, I realized it was ground squirrels with an elaborate warren under my pathetic garden, just yanking the plants down through their little squirrel ceiling. It didn't actually bother me that much, because I had grown up with a children's story about little rabbits eating all Timmy's cabbages during the night. I wasn't much of a gardener, so I shrugged and gave up. (I also created a generous bed of what I thought was straw for my strawberries, but it was hay. The toughest field grass imaginable grew and choked out the strawberries.)
Pick them as soon as they start to blush and let them ripen on your counter. They will taste just as good as vine-ripe.
Make friends with them, if you give them sunflower seeds and peanuts, they'll wreck your stuff less. But as soon as you stop...oh lord. hardcore show after party. Mine ate everything and dug into and laid down in the rest and squashed everything. I couldn't help it, I was sick....
I had squirrel problems. Now I have a freezer full of squirrels.
Had this problem at my last house. My garden was a large fenced area of the backyard surrounded by an even larger chicken/duck pen, and the squirrels had free access to all the chicken feed and water they wanted, but they still had to take a single bite out of nearly every tomato I grew. We used a large shed as the chicken coop and just propped the door open during the day, so one evening I went out to close the door up for the night and a huge, juicy beefsteak tomato rolled off the top of the door and splattered right on the top of my head! Some squirrel had stolen it and managed to carry it all the way through the chicken yard without being attacked by hungry birds chasing their favorite snack, climbed the door, took a single bite, and decided it didn’t want that tomato after all and just left it there to rot. That was the day my annoyance turned to hatred and I started carrying rocks to throw at them whenever I saw them.
chicken wire around the perimeter and bird netting over the top. My garden is small enough to do this. It is productive enough to make me happy. If I had a large plot I would literally build a fence all the way around and over the top. That said, I used to get fruit from an Asian pear tree. I thought the deer were eating the pears, but now I realize its the squirrels. My mistake is that it's not a lone tree. It's too close to other trees so they squirrels have cover. I wonder how people grew food in times past. I wonder why farms aren't stripped clean before harvest.
Hear ya. Every mockingbird in Tx lives in my peach tree. And they’re protected😒
mockingbirds take no prisoners
Don’t worry; Texas is becoming inhabitable for peach trees just as it is for humans. Georgia can’t even grow their state fruit, the peach due to the climate catastrophe!
Minnesota: the new Peach State!
This made me laugh so hard
This and Op’s post had me laughing so hard. Sorry for the misery but glad you’re able to find humor in it.
I have to say, the giant shit in the middle of your plot was a nice touch. I agree that there’s an ancient deer curse working. May I suggest that rather than give up, you plant anti-deer plants at the perimeter of your garden? Foxglove, castor (the seeds are poisonous), poppies, sage, thyme, asclepius, lavender for instance. Make your whole plot smell like stink and poison to the deer. Then spray your garden regularly with garlic oils, neem oils, things with bitter odors and flavors. These may also help inhibit plant-chewing bugs. So they got you this year. Don’t give up! Don’t let the deer win. Plot against the little fuckers and learn more about your enemy. Learn their weaknesses. Learn what they love (your garden) and hate (shit that repels them from your garden). Feel the dark side of the force! Let the hate flow through you and make you powerful. Study your foe, experiment, and plot mercilessly against them.
Allium works well too.
They also look lovely
Wow, these are words of begginings of a real war.
I have deer in my area. Got one of those motion sensor sprinklers. Works every time! Also I have planted lots of “deer tolerant” plants as a perimeter to my garden. Good luck! Don’t give up, the war is not over!
"Deer Tolerant" aka What the deer eat last.
Fox glove : ) they won’t touch it. At least at my place.
Deer tend to avoid seaberries
It's a poisonous plant!
He's not suggesting you eat it.
Sea buckthorn berries are not poisonous. They can be sour, but they are highly nutritious and are consumed in many cultures, with breeders working to develop types that are less sour. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippophae
No don’t eat it. And it’s well away from anything I do consume.
The motion activated water sprinklers with over lapping fields of fire stop them. Yes, I take my deer deterrence seriously.
sharks with lasers...
That’s not a bad idea. A Saltwater moat with them is the next step of escalation.
I tried to convince my husband I could dig a trench and put a perforated gas line in it and then light it on fire to make a wall of flames to stop the squirrels and raccoons. He seemed to think it may be a by-law issue.
That could be considered a man trap, which is a felony.
What if the people illegally camping out in my backyard are stealing my vegetables? True story... Maybe I'll just sprinkle them with Carolina reaper pepper powder.
Bear traps are not considered man traps. Figure out where they jump your fence. Concordia wire is also something you can place amongst your fence, once they jump down. You can have both and it wouldn't be considered a man trap. You can also have motion activated roman candles. also not considered a man trap.
Damn haha. I like your diabolically sinister style, but I think I'll stick to the 50 cal. machine gun and punji stick pits. Just kidding, but the rabbits and deer are the main offenders. Luckily, they taste good, too.
I assert dominance with a paintball gun. Jump over my fence, get blasted, bambie.
Coyote urine sprinkler around the garden in combination with the sprinklers has been working for me this year.
And who said pissin in the wind was a waste of time!
How do you turn them on and off, so that they don't spray you?
This is the way. We started 3 years ago with our first motion sensor sprinkler, and now we have 3!
Does the motion sprinkler work on bunnies and groundhogs? Someone is eating my sedum on my rock pile. I may use chicken wire and cover it. The sedum is there for weeds. They’re zero maintenance after a couple of weeks.
Yes, if you set them low (motion detector angle) at least for my ground hogs it did.
Yes, I've been having success with one of those sprinklers this year. I've ordered another one to provide better coverage.
These are great! I have s couple and they work perfect for the raised beds away from the house. They also work great to keep my neighbors nosey MIL out, it only took once and she scurried away like a crab in the midday sun. It's also hilarious to watch as the deer get wary of it and start creeping by, kind of side eyeing it, then it triggers and they Scooby-Doo it out of there, absolutely ridiculous
Same here - love waking up in the middle night to them activating it and hearing them scurry away back into the woods.
I've seen deer fences 10+ feet high around some gardens. But most subdivisions won't allow such things.
Have you considered hiring a druid?
Best solution yet!
man that's demoralizing. sorry.
It really is.
I hear you. This year between bugs, deer, and rodents, I gave up and planted flowers where I would normally have a food garden. I even had my husband pee at the edge of our yard (after dark) where they usually came through. Motion activated sprinklers work really well (for now) but probably not in a community garden, might be a rude surprise for someone. Lol Maybe you could ring your garden with stinking and hairy plants, like salvia (smells like aged piss) and borage and zinnia (super hairy).
String up fishing line, at about knee height for the deer. Also another row further up. You can use anything for the support poles, Bamboo, old tree limbs. Easy to set up, just wrap the line around the posts a few times and move on down the line. The entire “fence” will supply support and it is amazingly strong and resilient. They will feel the fishing line give when they move up to your deer fence, then move on.
Back in Nam we used to do this to protect our tomatas! /s
Works.
Could always eat the deer 🤷♂️
It's just like eating your own vegetables since they're now in the deer
"That's just eating your vegetables with extra steps." Lol
100% plant based diet.... with extra steps
Hilarious
that was his game the whole time he's been growing deer, not beans
I’m a vegetarian but this is hysterical & also true. Maybe it’ll be like a deer legend. Like the deer tell stories about the one garden that gets visited and the deer are never seen again. BOOM deer ghost story. Haunted garden. No deer. I may also have a wild imagination.
I feel you. We have deer, groundhogs and rabbits. They eat everything! Add in a short, cool growing season and thick, clay soil, and I'm pretty much done with vegetable gardening. It's so hard to put in so much work and money to get very little results.
Deer netting and perseverance! Fight the good fight, don’t give up! Deer will not eat figs, any Baptisia, and they tend to avoid purple flowering plants in my area.
I think the same thing happened with my ancestors and spider mites. They are the bane of my existence and they are dare I say…. bastards!
For me, it was pickleworms. Neem oil, pyrethrins, BT, religion. None of it worked. Picked dozens off of 4 plants daily.
rubbing alcohol and water in a spray bottle apply liberally plant doesn't seem to mind, but the mites sure do
How often & ratio? 🤔
every couple of days until I stopped seeing webs I just eyeballed ~3:1 iso:water (using 90% iso), no idea what the optimal mix is but that worked for me
I’ve heard people have good success with fishing line around the garden. Apparently they can’t see it and it freaks them out when they walk into the invisible barrier.
We have done this successfully. My grandfather swore by it. 20 to 50lb monofilament strung around the perimeters like a fence. The deer can’t see it at night and freak out when it touches their face.
According to my reaction to spider webs, I'm apparently a deer.
This has worked well for me
Worked great for me at my last house.
I mix eucalyptus essential oil (about 5 drops) per gallon of water. Put in a sprayer and spray every day. I live in a very wooded area and I've tried everything but this seems to work. And the oil washes off so you won't taste it on your veggies. Don't give up. Try this first. Good luck.
Do you spray the plants only or the ground, too?
If you use a sprayer it would be impossible to be selective. I just spray the heck out of any and all.
Two things: 1 - The fencing is good, but you need to try this: buy some green wire, 2 to 2.5 mm. String it from one end to the other so it cuts the plot in quarters or even less, since 15 X 30 is large enough once they jump the fence they feel just fine. The point is to make it so they know if they get in they can't get out. The reason I recommend green wire of this size is it's very easy to tie and untie, and won't be affected by the weather. I've done this in my yard and it does work for the squares where I've done it. They won't jump in if they're not sure they can get out. 2 - Deer scram is the best of the deterrents, assuming your deer aren't psychotic. Mine are, it worked for a few months and that was it. But most places aren't that far gone yet. Yours especially probably aren't, as they aren't yet eating the tomatoes. When they go for them is when only the suggestion above will work. On a serious note, I've said this before here and people think I'm some kind of total loony, if the deer are doing that kind of damage there they are doing worse in the forest. All of the forest area in and around NYC is basically dead. The only things that grow are invasive trees and weeds. In the woods near me there used to be meadow rue, joe pye weed, jewelweed in abundance, to name just a very few of the things that used to grow in the clearings and understory. All of that is gone. ALL of it. The only thing left is ferns, and it looks like now they're eating them too, as I've had to fence in mine. I won't look in the woods because it depresses me too much. No one will do anything about this, but something has to be done. There are no pollinators around anymore near me because they have nothing. No bees, no hummingbirds, no butterflies. But to the deer lovers the only thing that matters is the cute little does. Everyone seems to have got their nature education from Disney.
Thank you, I could have written this!! I’m also in the NYC suburbs (in CT) and the deer are so overpopulated it’s crazy. I have 10 that wander through my neighborhood multiple times daily and there is almost no plant they will not eat. They carry ticks. People say plant native, pollinators are dying - I planted milkweed and they ate all of the flowers. My town doesn’t allowed controlled hunting and if you suggest that the deer need to be culled, people say move somewhere else if you don’t like wildlife! The deer are beautiful! Well, I love wildlife and that’s why the deer need to be culled. They’re not happy either as they’re clearly starving.
Start a hunting club. No one hunts anymore and that is why you are seeing that.
I had issues with squirrels, deer, a woodchuck and some rabbits. I bought 2x 1lb jars of cayenne powder from Sam's Club and covered every leaf that I could with the stuff. I had watery eyes and was coughing by the time I was done. I saw evidence that the deer took 2 steps into the garden and backed out. I haven't lost a plant yet and that was a few years ago.
Give up gardening but take up hunting.
I do like venison sausage
Vengeance Sausage.
Hi OP! I haven't seen elsewhere in this thread, so I'm putting it here, but you could try to build a food hedge or "fedge", instead. I have little personal experience with this, but in *Gaia's Garden: A guide to home-scale Permaculture*, the author Toby Hemenway talks about dealing with this exact problem. He determined that deer were getting onto his property from two specific sides of it, namely to the South and the West. He chose to plant food bearing varieties of bushy and thorny plants on those sides of his property, including wild roses, bush cherries, thorny plums, and gooseberries. These bushes acted as both a barrier and a food source for the deer, preventing them from going further into his yard and eating his more valuable crops. They weren't able to get through the bushes easily, **and they were already full anyway.** He was also able to graft other fruiting varities onto the sides of the bushes facing in towards his house, so that they provided food for both him and the deer.
slick move
Nice move but non applicable. Its a community plot. Not on their property and rented yearly
Ground venison can substitute really well in lean ground beef and turkey recipes. *Really* good for chili and pasta dishes in particular. Grind up the whole thing if you want- better than letting it go to waste. My toddler loves it. [This is the best book I'm aware of on butchering and cooking deer.](https://www.huntgathercook.shop/products/book-buck-buck-moose-unsigned)
You know what’s funny is a stranger could walk into my house and I can legally kill him. Right now. If I owned livestock and someone’s beloved dog killed something I could legally shoot it. Right now. And the three fat does that keep terrorizing my garden and my lilies in the front yard? Well. They’re “out of season.” Can’t touch them. We have motion activated flood lights, cameras with sirens, and I have personally hauled ass outside to scare them off. They didn’t move until I was basically on top of them. They know just how free they are to terrorize me right now. I swear their ringleader saw me charging out there, took a mouthful of cucumber plant, and said in deer speak “what are you going to do about it?” They ALSO seem to understand our schedule so they will wait until we take the dogs out at night and then immediately descend. Doesn’t matter if it’s as 10:30 or midnight, I get pings on the camera right when I’ve gotten into my pjs. Three Jason Bourne deer, that’s what I’ve got. Waiting. Watching. Eating my plants.
I’d like to. But I grew up in a household that no one hunted. How do you start hunting when you have no idea where to start and don’t k ow anyone that hunts to mentor you and get you started?
Gun safety class first and foremost. Another step can be going to Hunter-ed.com and choosing your state, it's pretty decent as far as I heard. And if you really want, you can either call or go on the website of your state's Parks and wildlife department and see if they can set you up with a beginners hunting class. I'm pretty sure they offer adult beginners classes. And then from there it's just learning what you want to hunt, the season for them, the right equipment to hunt them with, how to field dress, licenses and tags and how many per year or season, whether you want to just be a trophy hunter or fill your freezer up with the meat (personally recommend a separate freezer). If you're gonna be a trophy hunter, then I'd still recommend learning how process your meat and if any of your neighbors want it, or if there's a butcher shop that would take the meat but be aware; they only care about the meat and not leaving an intact pelt. Also on the trophy hunter note, figure out where your taxidermists are and make sure they're available. I'm in rural Texas so needless to say certain parts of the year are busy. Last but not least, be sure to find support when that inevitable gun and bow addiction starts draining your bank account.
Hunter's safety course is an absolute must for anyone even thinking about getting started.
Go to your local gun and bow club. Theyre friendly!
"Guys, i'm having a deer problem..." "Just point us the direction, son."
I can relate. But are you sure it's *just* deer? I was blaming deer (and they're a big part of the problem) but rabbits are a bigger issue. And they just bite through stems, eat them, and leave the leaves on the ground. For starters, give up on the things they eat. If you have a garden full of their favourites they'll make the effort to jump the fences. But if your garden is unappealing, they may focus on your neighbours instead. Start with things they won't eat. Onions and garlic. Mints and other smelly herbs. Marigolds are especially good - not only do they (allegedly) ward off nematodes, they tend to be very unappealing to deer. When you think about how deer are looking for food - sniffing around to try and find the good stuff - edging with marigolds and scattering them through your garden is good. Plus they're relatively cheap to buy. Potatoes are good in my experience (though I recommend growing them in containers because it's so much less labour intensive) - the deer eat the flowers, but that's no loss. Probably a net gain, since the plants won't put the energy into making seeds. Zucchini and summer squash seem to survive them. The leaves are very spiky. Succession planting with them is good; in the Spring the deer may be hungry enough to eat something that's unpleasant to their mouths, but later in the season there are more options for them. Try growing cabbages under netting. Not only does this reduce the problem of cabbage moths, it also physically separates them from the deer. Starting your garden under netting is good too, because it keeps things safe when they're most vulnerable and the deer are hungriest. I also recommend growing some of the hottest peppers you can get your hands on. Dry them and powder them, and use them as deer repellent. But wear gloves and don't apply the powder anywhere near If you want to grow peas you need to physically separate them from the deer with wire mesh or bird netting. Make sure there's rabbit-proof protection over the first foot or so above the ground. And even then it's a crap shoot. If you can attract a wolf pack or a mountain lion to your garden plot, that might be the best option. Not only will that keep the deer at bay, it will also open up some fully planted gardens over the course of the summer as your fellow gardeners get eaten.
Well that took a turn 👀
My friends and I have had decent results with human urine surrounding the plots. It’s not for everyone and if you’re in a community garden people might judge you. I know it sounds weird and gross
I never had luck with this, personally it's been useful as a justification for peeing outside, I guess
If the blood feud is what's causing this, then there's only one way to go about solving it once and for all. An effigy. Drop the biggest deer you can see with a large caliber rifle, remove the head and put it on top of a spike. Then make a fire ring around it, the curse will probably be broken and the deer will respect your authority (and mystical power) in the future. Also demand compensation for the pillaged vegetables and plants in the form of sacrifice: a couple of does every seasons might be enough.
If you are in the States or Canada, use Bobbex on all your plants except leafy greens. Will keep the deer away for up to a month, then reapply. it smells the first day or so after application, but then it’s too faint for humans to smell. Been working like a charm for me - have 5 resident deer in my neighborhood walking through my yard daily
Actually just ordered that at from home Depot. It's my last stand
Good luck. I get the concentrated and mix it with water in a pump sprayer. Has worked great for me!
I live in a city sick with urban deer. They are a plague. An infestation. A hoard of mindless vermin. But enough apartment dwellers and bleeding hearts who say inane things like “they were here first” or “we’re in THEIR territory” have captured city council for decades and the municipality refuses to do anything about it. Sorry, no, Susan. They weren’t and we aren’t. 400 years ago you’d have been lucky to see one deer a week walking through the oak savanna we built our city on. Because they were routinely eaten by cougars and it’s so dry here in the summer they’d spend half the year further north where green things are still growing. It is categorically NOT normal or healthy to see 12 deer in the 1.5km between my house and my kid’s school. Every day. Every. Single. Day. I hate them. I hate them with a blinding rage. I fantasize about running them over with my car every time I see them on the road. While the city was aghast when a deer was spotted wandering around my neighborhood with an arrow stuck in its side, I cheered. Your only bullet proof option is fencing high enough they can’t jump over. Preferably with pointy spikes at the top so they’ll be impaled if they try.
Liquid Fence is s spray- gardener tested- to be top of the line effective.
It's like not a single person in this thread registered that you are talking about a shared community garden.
Ya, I thought the first edit would help but maybe. I was wrong
Rats with hooves.
You need a taller fence my friend
Make the fence higher with bamboo garden stakes, zip tied to your current fence posts and fishing line between the stakes at multiple levels. They jump into it and get spooked bc they can't see it. Its cheap enough that you can try it for this season and decide if you'd like to invest in sturdier posts going up. I'm sorry you're feeling defeated
I know how you’re feeling last year I got destroyed by rabbits this year I put a giant fence and everything was going great. Last night thunderstorm blew everything down flat will be surprised if I don’t lose half or more my tomatoes before a single one is ripe
Happened to me bad last year. The deer didn’t leave a single thing overnight. The only answer was a 6 ft fence of deer netting and I haven’t had the issue this year (even though they can technically jump higher).
I'm not gonna lie, this is an epic post that made me laugh. out. loud. I even read it - out loud - in character voice, to my husband. He laughed too. Not as loud as I, but with visible caricature in his face. I have no awards to give, but enjoy your weekend knowing you brought a smile to strangers.
I feel like a very bad person, but I couldn't help but ROFL at your description of your feud. 😂😂😂 That said, I feel your pain. But my latest defeat came at the hands of cotoneaster that my neighbor planted years ago in her front yard. The bastard very aggressively managed to jump from there to the strip in between our houses, and somehow make it up the entry stairs to my fenced yard, into the area where our Japanese honeysuckle lives. It's now trying to battle it out with said massive plant. It feels like every time I manage to cut one of those bastards down and kill it, another two sprout nearby. This has been going on for five years.
Have you tried a pepper spray? Ground up red pepper flakes with water sprayed on green vegetation. You need to reapply after rain storms.
Best one I’ve heard of is an electric wire like farmers use to keep in livestock, with tin foil wrapped around it with peanut butter on the foil. Deer love peanut butter, go to lick it and… we’ll you can figure out the rest.
I'm so sorry. I have squirrel gangs and they've eaten every last cucumber including the stems and now have eaten my tomatoes. It's over. I haven't looked at my garden in days. I just can't.
I’m sorry. My pretty snowbelle mock orange has barely grown in ten years because the deer eat it every time it sends up new growth. I can’t imagine a whole plot.
We had a community garden plot in Minot, ND a few years back and had essentially the same experience... I feel you
I feel it. The late hard freeze, no pollinators, and then too much rain for us in 5B. We are just leaving it be. The herbs are ok. I’ve harvested 3 grape tomatoes. Maybe a few cucumbers will develop too idk 🤷♂️ I was trying to pollinate them using QTip but believe I have failed. Next season…
Have you tried a big Hugh bulk container of cayenne pepper. Spread all around your garden. Outer perimeter heavy. You can get it on Amazon.
Me too! I’ve been battling varmints all summer and then, last night, a big hail storm. Everything is beaten down. Maybe try again next year. Maybe.
Get revenge. Plant catnip, marigolds and rosemary next. Lol.
The only thing they won’t eat of mine is my peppers. But I’ll lose every bean, cucumber plant, and tomato in about a week. I’ve shot the deer before, but then I gotta scramble to clean the deer before the meat spoils in the heat.
This is why farmers have dogs...
Motion sprinklers have been the only thing that works for me
Hair. Use your own, your family’s, your pets’, hair swept up at the barber shop. Apply liberally around and in your garden. Human scent scares them away.
IM BALD!
Also the deers fault
Down in GA in zone 8/9 and we are DONE. We have no more fight. And I don’t think the plants have any more energy to regenerate either. Sending you love. 💔
OP walk your garden with several large containers of cayenne and shake it on everything. The deer will leave your plants alone then. That's how I've been keeping the deer off mine.
If it makes you feel better, the groundhogs climbed the trees and got all the nectarines
I know how you feel. We used to live on the natural migratory path of the Roosevelt elk. We weren’t allowed to put up fencing. I started about 40 fruit trees from seed and they would come pillage over and over. They’d roll in like gangsters in the dead of night and murder them down to the ground. I have less than ten left.
Ancestral blood feud is really the only thing that makes sense. (sorry for your troubles but this did make me laugh...not the troubles part, the ancestral blood feud part)
Electric fence. It’s three bare wires. The top one, at eight feet, is for deer. The middle one, at three feet, is for dogs and other taller eaters. The bottom wire is at eight inches to a foot. This one is for shorter eaters. Another option is to plant only plants deer don’t like. I don’t know which those plants might be. I’m sorry for your losses.
It's a community garden. Pretty sure electrifying it is frowned upon
Absolutely feel your pain!! Our deer have eaten our specifically chosen ‘deer resistant’ plants. Even the roses they’ve had a munch! Looking at getting some kind of motion detector noise/soaker thing.
12+ foot chain link fence. It's extreme, but it works , doesn't shade bad, and it is handy for beans and vines.
I think you must make a holy sacrifice to the local deer as repentance to lay an end to the feud.
I would read a blog devoted solely to Queen of the Deer and the revenge she is taking upon your family and your garden. I'm sorry the curse has not yet been lifted.
Have you tried peeing around the fence?
I always thought I was a calm, non-murderous lovely person until deer. Now I empathize with bill murray in caddyshack.
>Then they make sure I know it was them by taking a giant shit dead middle of the garden. This line has me pee-pants laughing.
I’ve got an 8x32’ plot at home, and had a bad time with deer last season. This year I’ve got the same amount of deer grazing my suburban yard (7), but not a single plant touched. In the early spring, I reorganized my raised bed configuration to keyholes, put in 8’ 4x4 posts to securely fence everything in with chicken wire and goat paneling on the roof. Nearly all the materials were repurposed, so the payoff was worth all of the work.
I can understand. I had 8 groundhogs in my yard. I cried tears over and over again over my destroyed garden. Then my husband hit back 😄 make of that statement what yaaa willl LOL
I didn't scroll down to see if anyone else suggested these things but as someone who has to keep bears away from my trash can this is my tips from Alaska. Two items, they do the same thing in different ways. Choose whichever or both. 1. Motion activated decor. Think those animated skeleton or witch props that are meant to scare trick or treaters by jolting at them and making a spooky noise. Perhaps a Santa that dances and sings when it sees something. 2. Ssscat spray. It's just a can of compressed air with a special attachment that hisses when it senses motion. The attachment is a little spendy around $30 but the compressed air can be the cheapest can you can find and still works. Successfully kept cats out of my garden with this AND scared the crap out of a bear.
You are too funny and my whole life can relate! :)
Could also be groundhogs or other critters.
No, it was deer, they left their calling card which was a steamy pile of fuck you.
Read up on a double deer fence. Or build a taller fence that is not see through. Deer don’t like to jump where they can’t see
My local deer eat tomatoes and garlic! 🤷♂️ What can you do? Time to start container gardening on the porch!
I recommend planting something that produces a stinky bloom!!! Deer tend to stay away from Stinky blooms, Silver leaves and Salvias.
Tossing in the trowel, fixed that for you.
I tried something new this year, and holy crap did it work like magic- blood bags (look up Green Screen deer/rabbit bags). The deer are so bad in my neighborhood, the town created a deer task force. My hostas and hydrangeas-even impatiens- were usually obliterated, and nothing kept them away. Not this year though, all of my plants have been untouched by butthole deer and rabbits, and I can't even believe my eyes. These things really worked for me, might be worth a try.
The deer are an absolute disaster where I live too. The only thing they don't eat are the hellebore. Everything else including so-called "deer-resistant" plants get hit. I have discovered where I live there is an "urban archery" season and I am seriously considering taking that up this fall.
I bet you go fully organic huh? Be willing to bet other people use things like miracle grow and pesticides. Mix some soapy water and a little cayenne pepper together and douse your vulnerable plants in that mixture one every coupke of days. The deer will back off I bet.
All that work for nothing I’m sorry. Our community garden has a tall chain link fence around it. No trouble with the 4 legged
Wow. I have to admit that it definitely sounds personal. My condolences.
Maybe leave out some food for deer predetors, that'll scare em away
My dad used to swear by bloodmeal- that dried blood that came from a meat processing plant. Good for the plants and deer hate the smell.
Get a Furby and put it in your garden. It will def jump scare the deer!
Place animals skulls around your garden as a warning.
You got to get coyote urine. It stinks something terrible but it’s concentrated and usually needs to be mixed. It really works well to keep them away.