Deer Me

When I went googling for black tail deer most of the photos were bucks with huge antlers. And some photos were of those same bucks in the arms of the shooter. But this lady is the type we see more of here in Lake Shastina, feeding in our yards and gardens.

So here's how I armored my vegetable plot against their certain onslaught.

First we bought a seven foot tall net fence rated for deer. Hard to see as it is (black in color), I tied bright orange flagging tape randomly along the top to draw the attention of any browser who might be thinking "that's not too high, I can jump that". Kind of pretty when the wind blows but if I get tired of it I may weave small branches into it that are natural in color.

Another thing we're trying is piling brush along the outside. I'm hoping it will make it difficult for a deer to get close enough to the netting since they seem to spring upward from a standing point to get over a fence rather than taking a running start. This also helps to camouflage the posts and the box shape of the garden as a whole.

By using green six foot U-shaped metal stakes I attached 2 x 2 wooden extensions reaching upward enough to support the netting. (With green spray paint they would blend nicely with the lower metal part). The stakes have screw holes in the "U" and because of that, the 2 by 2 fit nicely when snugged in with a 2" sheetrock screw.

Hint: rent a post pounder to drive these stakes. $5.50 for 24 hours takes a lot of work out of climbing up and down a ladder using a sledgehammer to set them.

This netting came in a seven foot high roll. On one side of the garden I have an existing fence three feet tall so I ripped some junk 2 x 4's and measured off 48" from one end. That is how much that has to stick up to get the seven foot total height to attach the netting. As long as I have 18 to 24 inches left to work with it should hold so they don't have to be 8 foot studs. Even six footers will work. I use 3" self-drilling Torx head screws to get it onto the fence post.

But if I staple the whole 7 foot webbing to these from the top down, I'm wasting the lower half because my fence is already 3 feet tall and the netting just hangs unused over that part.

So I cut along the fold of the netting and now my 100 foot roll will cover 200 feet. But there's a 12" gap (36 inch tall fence minus seven foot desired height = 48 inches).

I think deer perception of barriers is mostly visual though, so if I can "fill" the opening they may not try to stick their head through.

So I'm going to weave string from the metal fence mesh below to the vinyl netting above, back and forth in a zig-zag design the whole length. I may add a horizontal string and / or flagging to draw more attention.

The big thing this extra length means is that I might also be able to enclose our rear yard that already has the 36" fence on three sides. A 100 ft. roll of this deer netting ran us $70 so it would be a meaningful savings. Sally loves to have flowers there for color but the deer regularly eat them. Sometimes I think we're just buying deer food when we buy the flowers.

I forgot to mention that these wooden uprights are great places to hang light flower pots, humming bird feeders, windchimes, etc. Easy to attach things like that. Since my garden is only about 30 feet wide we may also run baling wire from one post top to another across the expanse for more hangings although the weight of anything would have to be much less than on the sides.

We also made the area large enough so we can put a potting bench along the north edge, a compost bin, a source pile of topsoil, and storage for tools. We'll even move in one of those (painfully heavy) cast iron sitting benches that is now on our front porch. So we can sit and admire the birds and plants.