Market Farming

["delannw" <delannw AT dlogue.net>]

Mike,
Deer are unbelievably smart.  It does take some ingenuity to keep ahead of
them.
I talked to a deer hunter who clued me in on the way they see things and I
devised a plan to confuse them.  I would suggest talking to a good deer
hunter.  A good hunter can probably tell you how to confuse or repel them,
or perhaps, offer to shoot them.

Here is what worked for me last year when they were eating my chile
plants...that's right, the hottest one's I was growing...
Of course it all depends on the size of the area you are trying to protect.
Deer are pretty good at jumping over fences.

In a 6000' sq ft area I placed a cage (like a  large tomato cage) around the
plants on the edge of the eating area.  Cages were 5' high.  The deer didn't
try to jump these although they did push them.
When they finally figured they could get their heads down into the cages to
eat I laid 8' boards (just thin ceiling type boards) across the cages.
Maybe this visually confused them to see boards apparently 'hanging' in the
air over the plants.  Anyway, they never jumped the cages to try to get to
the rest of the plants and the boards kept them from getting their heads
into the cages.

Every other night I would also leave out one dog to keep out raccoons and
deer.  I have a rottweiler and a sheperd.  Every other night seemed to keep
the deer on edge.  They never knew if the dog was actually out or not.  The
dogs chase off the deer and kill the raccoons.

Either it was the combination of these efforts or the deer found someone
else's vegetables easier to eat.  They quit coming around.