Homestead mailing list

[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

In a message dated 2/8/2008 11:13:02 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
genegerue AT ruralize.com writes:


> I sometimes think that one should just bite the bullet and built a  
> fortress wall around the garden, like the Nearings, with a concrete  
> foundation below where any mole, vole, gopher, rabbit or groundhog  
> would dig and a solid wall high enough to dissuade deer, with an  
> electric wire atop the wall to repel squirrels. That would leave birds.
> 

I'm making a stab at a fortress around the garden.  This past year in the 
drought every sort of green thing became too much of a temptation for the 
deer.  
We didn't harvest one bean after the middle of July, deer got them all.  This 
week coming home at dusk I saw seventeen deer together in a neighbor's field.

The main garden is a 100 foot circle done in concentric beds.  It has a 4' 
field fence around it which the deer (and racoons and groundhogs) ignore. I 
have 
set another line of fence posts 3' from the original fence and filled the 3' 
space in between with 8" of limb chips (obtained from a tree sevice who was 
all too happy to dump them on my place rather than haul them 30 miles)  These 
outside poles are being equiped with tensioned (mildly tensioned) galvanized 
electric fence wires at 6", 12", 30", 48", and a visible tape at 6'.  These 
wires 
and tape are powered by a 12 joule elephant scortcher fence charger.  The 
three foot space between the fences is home to a dog (half aussie and half 
transient hound, very confused dog) who can make the entire circle at will.

Deer would have to brave the dog, clear the 6' electric fence, then clear 3' 
more space to to the 4' field fence in the same leap.  The low wire has 
proven 
effective against rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, and such.   We don't have 
gophers and very few moles.  The small vermin promlem is voles and the 
copious 
mulch used in the garden only makes the problem worse.  I encourage snakes 
and 
cats (although the cats often eat all the snakes)  but also had good luck 
with 
a vole trap made from a 5 gallon bucket.

I've almost got the 'Doughnut of Death' finished and will soon be setting out 
plants,  Fava beans and peas will be up before long and will provide a test.  
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