Deer, Take II

Earlier I described a few ways I tried to keep deer out of my garden last year.  They were mostly unsuccessful.  One that was partly successful was a motion-activated sprinkler.  I set it to maximum sensitivity and it would fire a five-second blast of water when triggered.  It seemed to limit the damage, but there was one major problem: the hose bib in the back of the house is right next to the master bedroom.  I could hear the water start and stop for each five-second blast; it woke me up at night.  A couple of times it would fire twice in a couple of minutes; I'd get up and go outside to look; I'd see deer.  However, multiple alerts every night was not really going to work for me.   I only used it for a couple of weeks (if that) then gave up for the year.

So far, this year I am having success with a higher fence.  The original fence was four-foot chicken wire, with one foot bent horizontal as a deterrent to digging under the fence.  That is now buried under grass and thatch.  It works pretty well against rabbits, but doesn't deter deer.

So I drove in some more seven-foot t-posts (in addition to the ones from last year that I strung the twine on) and added another three-foot band of chicken wire.  I stitched it to the bottom section with the remants of the twine, plus some new line.

It's ugly.  It's not at all straight, symmetric, or anything else.  But it's working ok, so I'm not unhappy with it.  So far the only thing I've had to deal with is voles / mice (or whatever they are); they went after my green beans hard when they first started to climb the trellis.  Some Tomcat bait took care of them in short order; the bait was gnawed on; the bean damage stopped; and I smelled something rotting out there about a week after placing the bait.

For the gate I drove two posts and fashioned hooks out of nine-gauge wire I have for a future kiwi trellis.  I lashed the hooks to the posts with 16-gauge wire, then hung a section of welded wire fencing that is about four feet high and six feet long (I hung it sideways).  That's also ugly, but also working.

These pictures show the garden before anything was growing there.  Now it's more populated, with okra, cucumbers, Kentucky Wonder green beans on one of the trellises, tomato plants, some late-planted Blue Clarage, and lots o' weeds.  So far, other than the vole issue with the green beans, most has been well.  Stink bugs like the green beans and tomatoes, and Japanese beetles have been seen on the green beans and okra.  Those problems are manageable.  Deer that clear-cut the okra in one night are not.