Fishing String, Eggs, Shock All Help Deter Deer from Garden

Last week I wrote about the deer that have recently taken an interest in my garden. Several readers sent me tips for keeping deer out of their gardens, so I thought I’d share some of them.

I mentioned the two-fence method last week that seems to keep deer away. You can build two fences as short as four feet in height and spaced four feet apart. Deer get “landing anxiety” when they consider jumping an obstacle like a fence. Deer need a running start to jump. They’ll typically avoid jumping into the space between two fences because they won’t be able to get a running start when they want to jump out. But building two fences is a lot of work.

My old gardening friend Martin Payne of Fayetteville said two electric fences work just as well as two barbed wire fences, and they’re much easier to install.

Payne said a fruit tree grower he knows in the area has installed several thousand feet of these electric fences to keep deer out of his orchard, and it seems to work quite well.

Payne shared an excellent write-up by the fencing supply company Premier 1 about installing such fences. Read it here: https://www.premier-1supplies.com/deer/fencing. php?fence_id=31. Of course, you can use any brand of electric fencing materials to accomplish the task. The company says rope wire conductors work better than plain electric wire, so keep that in mind.

I also wrote about spraying garlic-pepper tea to repel deer, and I mentioned that some folks add eggs to the mix. Reader Bertie Etzel says eggs alone will deter deer.

“Not regularly but occasionally, I spray the garden with a mixture of one or two eggs to a gallon of water,” Etzel said. “I use a small pump hand sprayer. This has kept the deer out for the past several years. In the beginning, I sprayed every two or three days. Now I spray occasionally, but when I spray I spray the plants, the fence and about three feet outside the fence. This works for me.”

Anita Lyons of Muldoon says her husband uses monofilament fishing line to keep deer out of the garden.

“He used T-posts in the corners and put the line about four feet high,” Lyons said. “The deer hit it and can’t see it, and it scares them away. Cheap and easy and one time install. Super simple.”

Please share any other ideas you have for keeping deer away. You can email me at andy@fayettecountyrecord. com.