K and I went out today searching for deer fencing for our garden. The plot is going to be 40’x40′. I am only going to have 6 raised beds to start with (triangle shaped 8’x10’x10′), but I would also like to have a sand box for K to play in while I am gardening. Plus, this leaves lots of space for more raised beds. But, deer fencing is either very expensive, or flimsy, crappy, plastic stuff. One salesman told me about this stuff called Plantskydd that is suppose to be this fantastic deer deterent. But, it is basically pig and cow blood. Aside from the Mad Cow thing, why would I want to use pig and cow blood on my plants? The directions also said not to get it on anything that would be ingested… isn’t that everything in a vegetable garden? So, I started thinking. If blood is supposed to deter animals from eating the garden up, why couldn’t I just use my own blood? (I do ‘shed’ once a month…) I could mix my own very diluted healthy blood with garlic and mint or other repellant plants and spray it on the garden. Sound too gross?? Menstural blood is full of nutrients and minerals since it was supposed to support a baby. I’ve actually known a few women who would use the Keeper, catch their menstural flow, and then use it in their plant fertilizer. Their gardens were gorgeous.
What do you gardeners out there use to keep deer away?
I’ve actually done the blood thing, when I used the keeper, also hair, blood and bone meal….I’ve found human hair – lavishly used – does some good, but this year we’ll be investing in fencing….the plastic stuff if I’m thinking of the same thing,actually has a very good rep. for deer control – we’ll be using the poly netting and steel posts if we need to make the investment this year….supposedly it can be as cheap as 400 bucks an acre if you use your own posts/use trees to secure it.
A fence around the garden with a Great Pyrenees dog on the outside of the fence!
We have a Pyrenees (#3 of 3 successive). Two comments: I wouldn’t use bloodmeal because the other day Joe got loose and ate a bunch in the neighbor’s garage. It came throught, but i had to worry for several days!
We have a big deer problem and have solved it with a small electic fence: a convertor box (buy at a feed store), wire and plastic fence posts. We have used this for several years and it works beautifully. It is only about 18 inches high, but the deer touch it and don’t try to jump over. This is cheap, too. Good luck!