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A friend of mine, a horticulturalist at Cypress Gardens in SC, uses - used cat litter.
It has to be put out regularly, at least once a week, on the perimeter of the gardens, not mixed in or sprinkled over. She swears by it; says that deer can't tell the difference in cat urine from bobcat urine. She uses it on the gardens where she works.
I have barn cats who not only eradicate everything from snakes and rodents to bunnies, but we are in a heavily-populated-deer and antelope area - and the deer won't come near my yard or gardens here, either.
I think coffee grounds definitely keep insects out of the garden. The first year of my veggie garden, I spread all our used grounds in it. I had no bug problems. The second year (which was last year), we switched to a different coffee maker and didn't have used grounds (Kuerig). I had a major ant and pest problem. This year, my sweet dh went to Starbucks and they loaded him up. My garden is now covered with grounds and my broccoli has been producing like crazy. I definitely plan to keep using coffee grounds. I spread it on my hydrangeas, azaleas and blueberry bushes too.
I have one of the new Leupold "Trail Cams" that I have set up outside our garden and it has provided information about when they typically arrive. It's usually about 10:00 to 10:30 pm.
And so... armed with that invaluable knowledge, I recently sat out there, in an unconspicuous spot, with my trusty 12 ga Remington 870 pump-shotgun.
Now before you get all riled up, I used to work with problem polar and black bears in and around remote location camps run by oil and mining exploration companies. I did research on ways to avoid having to kill off these wonderful animals (yeah, even a black bear is wonderful to me..).
So I was/am using a very light but very fast (high velocity) ballistic nylon slug that does not even penetrtate, and when it's fired it sounds about as loud (i.e.: not loud at all!) as a small firecracker!
I wait until my 3 does that are working our garden stuff (and bird seed, btw...) get their heads in there, just where I don't want them, and "POP", I ping one of them right in their cute lil' venison-butts, from about 25 yds max!
You should see the looks on their faces. Well, technically, I can't see that at night myself, but I will imagine it's probably one of considerable surprise. And as well, they are doing the exact thing I don't want them tov od, so it's a sort of psychological conditioning process: like getting an electric shock every time you smoke a cigarette!
You could similarly uses a loud firecracker or perhaps fire a lite-target-load shotgun (with real ammo) safely into the ground behind them? Scares the deer droppings out of them for sure! Couple it with a very brite LED spotlight or one of those tiny little flashing LED spotlights they sell in tactical firearms magazines, the ones that clip onto the bottom of your home defense handgun! I'm just sayin'...
You know, if you also temporarily blind and scare them, you may well achieve true psycho-terror in their little deer-sized brains!
(Make sure you tell your neighbors what you'll be up to for a few nights though; you don't want them to think there's a home invasion going on nearby...)
Mine sure seem a bit hesitant now to come around now though!
I have one of the new Leupold "Trail Cams" that I have set up outside our garden and it has provided information about when they typically arrive. It's usually about 10:00 to 10:30 pm.
And so... armed with that invaluable knowledge, I recently sat out there, in an unconspicuous spot, with my trusty 12 ga Remington 870 pump-shotgun.
Now before you get all riled up, I used to work with problem polar and black bears in and around remote location camps run by oil and mining exploration companies. I did research on ways to avoid having to kill off these wonderful animals (yeah, even a black bear is wonderful to me..).
So I was/am using a very light but very fast (high velocity) ballistic nylon slug that does not even penetrtate, and when it's fired it sounds about as loud (i.e.: not loud at all!) as a small firecracker!
I wait until my 3 does that are working our garden stuff (and bird seed, btw...) get their heads in there, just where I don't want them, and "POP", I ping one of them right in their cute lil' venison-butts, from about 25 yds max!
You should see the looks on their faces. Well, technically, I can't see that at night myself, but I will imagine it's probably one of considerable surprise. And as well, they are doing the exact thing I don't want them tov od, so it's a sort of psychological conditioning process: like getting an electric shock every time you smoke a cigarette!
You could similarly uses a loud firecracker or perhaps fire a lite-target-load shotgun (with real ammo) safely into the ground behind them? Scares the deer droppings out of them for sure! Couple it with a very brite LED spotlight or one of those tiny little flashing LED spotlights they sell in tactical firearms magazines, the ones that clip onto the bottom of your home defense handgun! I'm just sayin'...
You know, if you also temporarily blind and scare them, you may well achieve true psycho-terror in their little deer-sized brains!
(Make sure you tell your neighbors what you'll be up to for a few nights though; you don't want them to think there's a home invasion going on nearby...)
Mine sure seem a bit hesitant now to come around now though!
I shall keep that in mind! We generally have 8-12 deer roaming or destroying my greenery twice a day.
Depends if they're regular, de-caf or from Starbucks...
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"Shoo [bang!!!], Deer!"
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