Re: [CH] Re: deer repellent plants

Calvin Donaghey (gdonaghey@bitstreet.com)
Sat, 17 Jul 1999 19:11:51 -0500 

Babs, et al-
I live in an area where I see deer every day when I'm out of town on a job.
Trust me when I say a 6' fence is not a problem for them.  A friend grows
peanuts, which deer LOVE, and his fences are 9' all the way around his field.
He says he still sees a few give it a try now and then, even at 9'.  Mind you,
these deer are not starving, and are not running for their lives, they just like
peanuts.
My friend has trouble with them eating his garden, too, but he says hanging
little containers around with mothballs has cut it way back.  Never tried it
myself, I don't live far enough out for deer to be a problem.  Might persuade
rodents to back off.  I have been in on the construction of some storage units
for gas pipeline facilities where rats and skunks are a problem, and we always
threw a couple of boxes of mothballs under the units before they were set:  no
skunks and no rats, even after 3 years.
Calvin

Babs Woods wrote:

>         Risa,
>
>         We have a garden which we fenced in a few years ago because, as we
> discovered, our problem was a woodchuck (along with other smaller rodents).
> When rabies swept through the area (I live near Jim McGrath), woodchucks
> and the like were hit hard and our woodchuck was among them.  This and
> the warmer winters has meant a wildlife population shift and now our worst
> problem seems to be Bambi this year.  Last year seems to have been Bear
> Year here, as there were warnings to local people not to feed the birds,
> lest we attract the bear that had been spotted in the surrounding towns.
> The birds were not happy about this.  In looking up how to defend the
> garden against deer, we reviewed fence height issues.  Apparently, deer
> can leap our 3ft and 4ft fencing, I've watched one do it, and it looks like
> we need at least a 6ft tall fence to keep them out.  Check gardening books
> and see what they tell you, this is from one of ours, which points out that
> "there is no worse offender than Bambi".
>
>         We are experimenting with repellents.  We have one organic one whose
> name I can't recall that's supposed to be good at repelling squirrels as
> well as deer and includes a very bitter substance and some capsaicins.  (I
> went and checked:  Outdoor Bitter Magic.)  I laid out some bird seed to
> attract the chipmunks who are driving me mad near one of my windows and
> sprayed this stuff on it.  I don't know what they think of it, but the
> squirrel I watched eating every last seed absolutely loved it.  [Sigh.]  I
> now know it doesn't repel squirrels.  I'm considering a howitzer.
>
>                                 -babs
>
> --
> "Excuse me while I dance a little jig of despair."