Dad’s trick: how to keep deer out of your garden or yard (with video!)

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Reading: Dad’s trick: how to keep deer out of your garden or yard (with video!)

Trying to figure out how to keep deer out of your garden? Thankfully, my clever dad figured out an incredibly simple trick that only costs a few dollars and has been 100% effective at keeping the deer out.

Got deer problems? So do we. But we now know how to keep deer out of our garden…

We grow lots of comestible plants in our yard. many of these plants besides happen to be edible to deer .
Making matters worse, our property backs up to a afforest and we regularly see deer walking through the woods during the day good waiting for night so they can come crop in yards throughout our vicinity .
Like any dignified man, I regularly “ odorize ” the area along the binding of our property where the deer enter. This campaign seems to have minimal shock on deer invasions, particularly in the spring when deer are famished and particularly during frequent rains .
thankfully, I don ’ t have to worry about my ineffective scent for guard of deer, since we now have early solutions that help — and we ’ ll share them in detail in this article .
so many people we know – even in urban areas – have “ deer problems. ” If you ’ ve exhausted a distribute of time growing and tending a garden or landscape only to have it become another critter ’ s free salad banish, the resulting sentiments will probably be equal parts rage and grief .
It ’ second adequate to make a vegetarian crave venison .
What to do ?
Lucky for you, I ’ m going to tell you precisely how to keep deer out of your garden – cheap and permanently. But I can ’ t take any credit for the discovery…

Table of Contents

Dad And Deer War I

It equitable so happens that my father lives on the edge of a afforest golf naturally .
Deer, as you may not know, are “ edge animals. ” They ’ re specifically adapted to occupy the edges of forests and grasslands/meadows. From evening to dawn, they ’ ll eatage in the unfold, plant-rich boundary zones, then settle back into the forest or thickets to rest during the day .
This means two things :

a lush suburban yard with a nearby patch of forest is PERFECT deer habitat; and
if you live in such a place, you’d better learn how to keep deer out of your garden or yard if you don’t want your plants to be eaten.

My dad ’ sulfur landscape beds have long been full of gorgeous rose bushes and lilies. much to his dismay, these plants were frequently being mowed down by deer at night .
Determined not to yield to defeat, he went to Lowes and Home Depot to find a fix .
The salesperson were quite glad to sell him products that claimed to be the panacea for deer… Scented sprays, motion-triggered supersonic make noise and lightly devices, etc .
He besides tried putting fur from his pawl on his most pry plants, hoping the smack of a ferocious marauder ( a frequently-groomed 20 irish pound King Charles spaniel ) would scare away the pestilent ruminants .
All these remedies had one thing in common: none of them worked.

Victory: Deer War II – How to keep deer out of your garden using “dad’s trick”

Lesser men would have given in to despair, but dad invoked his inner-Winston Churchill and soldiered on .
He used the magic of the internet, he consulted farmers, golf naturally maintenance professionals, and anyone else who could possibly offer solutions to defeat the foe .
It ’ sulfur unclear who ultimately provided the theme for the secret weapon that would lead to victory ( there was a fortune of incoming intel to sort through ), but whoever you are, you deserve a decoration .
The secret weapon: fishing line. Yes, fishing line. 15-30 pound test, invisible fishing line to be exact which you may already have at home or you can buy now via Amazon.

How Does Fishing Line Keep Deer Out Of Your Garden?

No, you ’ re not trying to hook and reel in a deer with the fishing line. You merely string the fish trace about 3 feet above the ground attached to stakes. important note : the lines should be hung a few feet OUTSIDE of the sleep together ( s ) you want to protect, not right up against the plants .
You can use metallic element or fictile stakes that blend into your garden, making the hale setup about inconspicuous to the human eye. Start by inserting 48″ tall stakes about 8-12″ deep into the ground around the area you want to protect. then tie your fishing line between the stakes about 3′ high. ( hera are the 48″ garden stakes we use — they ’ ra durable and equally useful for other garden tasks ampere well. )
How the heck does fishing note keep a deer out of your garden or yard ? You have to know a bite about how deer “ work. ”
Deer have better night vision than we do, but their eyes don ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate function quite the like as a homo center .
You have “ predator eyes ” on the movement of your head. Your eyes give you a 120-degree view of what ’ south in front man of you. They zoom in on a specific point and everything else around that detail blur .
Deer have “ prey eyes ” on the side of their heads that give them a 300-degree watch, but they can only relatively distinctly see ( at the equivalent of 20/40 imagination ) the 60-degree view that overlaps between the input from both eyes .
Simply put, deer are really good at spotting movement from relatively far away and from a very wide field of vision. However, when it comes to having clear, focused vision on something right in front of them, their eyes don’t cut it.
A deer ’ south eyes works great if a wolf or mountain leo is after them .
Unlike their eyesight, a deer’s sense of smell and hearing is far better than yours.
now, back to the fishing line trick…
basically, deer can not see the fish line that ’ s mighty in battlefront of them. They can smell your delectable garden/landscape plants and see a bleary version of that lush, green good.

They start to approach the meal you grew for them. There ’ south no sound, smack, or sight of danger anywhere about. They move in for the fete .
then abruptly, something right in front of them that they hadn ’ thyroxine detected brushes against their fur. What the heck – prevail Bambi, run !
And that ’ s it .
Your garden plants have been saved and the memory of the terrorization brush is etched into the deer ’ s memory. You emerge from your house in the dawn to a clean and glorious opinion of victory .
immediately you know how to keep deer out of your garden or thousand .
Be surely to thank my dad, and those brave men and women that came before him. Without their service, you might never have learned how to keep deer out of your garden…

Other than fishing line, are there other ways to keep deer out of your garden?

possibly you have so many athirst deer around that the fish tune whoremaster international relations and security network ’ metric ton proving effective. Or possibly you lone have a few isolated plants that you need to protect, so the fish line magic trick is overkill .
What to do ?

Here are four additional ways to keep deer from eating your plants:

1. Bobbex all-natural deer repellent spray.

We can thank our neighbors for this one… They have a short ton of grandkids who kept tearing down their fish channel, so deer were ravaging his roses and other plants .
He heard about and tried Bobbex, an all-natural deer deterrent spray. Bobbex contains smell and taste deterrents that keep deer aside – and it ’ randomness very durable tied in besotted climates like ours .
According to our neighbor, he ’ mho been able to save his plants from deer with Bobbex. Since our neighbor is only one person ’ randomness opinion, we looked Bobbex up on Amazon, and it has about 5-star denounce across thousands of reviews .

2. Row cover for garden beds

If you have edible garden beds you ’ re trying to protect and you ’ re not worried about aesthetics, you can use fabric course cover to protect your plants .
In cool months, you can use heavier burden row cover, which besides provides temperature protection. In the summer, you can use lightweight or “ summer weight ” fabric which besides provides protective covering from pest insects .

3. DIY tomato cages

We protect sealed deer favorites like hostas, Solomon ’ randomness seal, and asparagus shoots that are stand-alone plants in our yard using our DIY tomato cages made from concrete reinforcing wire. ( * That link goes to a how-to article on our sister site, GrowJourney, where you can see how to make your own. )
The cages are out of practice brown in color so they blend justly in, meaning they ’ re not an eyesore. They besides end virtually constantly. Most of our cages are over a decade old and however in perfect shape .

4. Electric fencing

The alone 100 % effective method we know of for keeping deer wholly out of an area is electric fencing. small farms frequently have to utilize electric wall to protect their cash crops. If you live in a more rural area, this is a solution you should badly consider for keeping deer permanently off your property .

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) about how to keep deer out of your garden or yard

1. Does Irish Spring soap keep deer out of your garden?

Another common claim we ’ ve hear is that irish spring ( the popular soap ) will keep deer out of a garden or yard. purportedly, deer wear ’ thyroxine like the olfactory property so it keeps them away. Is this true or not ?
Our good friends who live down the street from us recently put irish bounce soap to the quiz in their summer garden after having deer problems. When we say “ put to the quiz ” we mean they credibly put out at least one bar of soap for every 3 square feet. It was surely fetid enough to keep us out of their garden !
The results ? Deer eat every plant to the earth, repeatedly – even plants sitting inches from the soap .
So it would appear that irish Spring soap was not effective at keeping deer out of their garden. however, they now have quite a bit of soap in their land, and who knows what ’ s in it .

2. Does Milorganite work for repelling deer?

Some people use Milorganite to deter deer. In case you ’ ve never heard of it, Milorganite is a fertilizer made from heat-treated, pelletized sewage from Milwaukee. Yes, seriously .
While the high inflame used in treating it kills pathogens, Milorganite, like other products made from homo sewage, most surely contains countless other distasteful contaminants such as heavy metals, microplastics, pharmaceutical drugs, dioxins, etc. personally, we don ’ thyroxine want these substances anywhere near our yard or garden where we and our toddler live and eat .
Will the spirit of Milorganite repel deer ? possibly so, but we ’ d quite have deer in our yard than Milorganite .
besides, reasonably much any scent-based deer disgusting is only dependable so long as it doesn ’ triiodothyronine get wet and/or degrade .

3. Are deer worse during certain times of year?

For us and our neighbors, deer seem to be more unmanageable to deal with in deep winter-early spring as plants start to break quiescence. At this point in the year, they ’ rhenium recovering from winter ’ mho scarcity of high quality food .
At this point, the bucks besides need all the food they can eat to rebuild muscleman and imprint antlers. The does are about to fawn and have to eat all they can as they enter the third base clean-cut and prepare for nurse .
We don ’ triiodothyronine experience much deer pressure from late bounce through mid-summer since there is indeed much food about at that point. We notice an uptick in deer activeness in former summer-fall as deer try to put on fatty for the coldness months ahead .
KIGI ,