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Post by diane on Aug 26, 2019 14:04:00 GMT -5
I have most of my vegetables behind a deer fence, but some are in unfenced areas.
Squash and cucumbers are growing unmolested.
Queen Anne's Lace has not been touched, so I am going to try sowing some unprotected carrots.
Almost everything else gets eaten. I accidentally left one of the three vegetable garden gates open and the deer had a feast - potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peas. Oddly, they didn't eat any kale, lilies or blueberry plants)
Garlic is usually safe - it has only been eaten in midwinter if we have had snow (which is rare).
Other onion family members are eaten, especially leeks. Onions are usually OK but this year each onion has had the top half of its leaves eaten.
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Post by steev on Aug 26, 2019 21:12:03 GMT -5
Deer eat grape leaves, but mostly not the fruit; they don't bother the volunteer wheat, nor olive trees. Still, they will sometimes "sample" things to death, just to be sure they still don't like them.
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Post by philagardener on Aug 27, 2019 4:54:44 GMT -5
Deer got over my fence and vacuumed up a bunch of tomatoes, munched on my beans, and generally tried a bit of everything including cucumber leaves. The winter squash growing outside the fence were all denuded of leaves as well.  |
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Post by Dewdrop on Aug 28, 2019 10:01:14 GMT -5
My list of the known favorites of the deer so far are sweet corn kernels, sweet corn plants(preferably when sprouting out or still young), then everything else at risk. Not (yet?) eaten are potato plants and sunflower plants.
The deer appear to leave the asparagus alone. I was told a story that deer won't eat a hot pepper twice, apparently one bite was enough!
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Post by jerryrva on Aug 29, 2019 9:00:31 GMT -5
Deer eat grape leaves, but mostly not the fruit; they don't bother the volunteer wheat, nor olive trees. Still, they will sometimes "sample" things to death, just to be sure they still don't like them. Deer love to eat wheat. So much so that commercial production has shifted to awned varieties of soft red winter wheat on the east coast as they don't like the stiff awns when they chew the heads. |
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Post by steev on Aug 29, 2019 10:22:45 GMT -5
Guess that's not what my volunteer wheat is then. since they don't eat it at any stage.
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Post by walt on Aug 29, 2019 11:11:35 GMT -5
In Kansas, deer damage to wheat is more crushing by sleeping in it, not so much from eating it. Wjeat farmers like deer hunters, as long as they behave.
That is, don't break fences or leave gates open. Ranchers also like their land hunted. With no predaters to speak of, except humans, deer have become a problem, especially for people driving cars, but farmers and ranchers too. And gardeners and orchardists.
I used to keep dogs in my garden. I had 3 dogs and they had to take turns. That worked pretty well.
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Post by diane on Oct 6, 2020 23:29:12 GMT -5
I've found one more plant that my deer don't like: tomatillo.
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Post by flowerbug on Oct 7, 2020 13:37:02 GMT -5
like steev says above they may not like something but get enough of them sampling and they can still take out the plants. daffodils are supposed to be deer resistant and they rarely are eaten a lot, but every year a few are sampled by the youngsters who don't know better. and what they don't sample they can trample.
this year the north garden (which is not fenced) has survived and done very well. they don't really like the Purple Dove beans that i had planted in there, but they have sampled them several times and also trampled some of them while going for the strawberry plants (which they do adore).
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