Do/will deer eat Basil? What do they pick off from your garden? (grow, Hydrangea)

[33458]

I'm the nut job that actually plants stuff for them to eat...roses, even...but was thinking basil or other easy to grow herbs might be a cheaper option...

Mine eat the new growth on the 'deer' roses, eat one kind of hosta and ignore the others...eat one basic pink hydrangea and leave the heirloom green alone (that's luck, right there) and completely ignore the tiny critter crabapple I'm trying to grow back there (not enough sun or water, gotta move).

I had tilled chicory and brassica seeds last year...the chicory might finally be coming up now, but the deer IGNORED the hardy brassica that grew immediately and survived the winter. Huh.

I toss soft apples out for them once in a while, but they don't seem to eat those, either...which is weird. Maybe it smells too much like me.

[Fat Freddy]

Originally Posted by 33458

I toss soft apples out for them once in a while, but they don't seem to eat those, either...which is weird. Maybe it smells too much like me.

I buy them apples that have been culled because they weren't perfect looking.
The guy at the fruit stand calls them "deer apples".

Some of the deer will eat them out of my hand.
The last couple of months the mother does have been bringing their new fawns around.
It's fun introducing them to apples and watching them learn how to eat them.

If I plant anything in the yard, they will eat it, so my garden grows on my deck.
So far they haven't come up on the deck and eaten it up.

But I have seen them looking.

[no kudzu]

beware- deer do climb up stairs to get to your deck and porch plants. I lay out a small trellis on the steps at night to dissuade them from coming up. it seems to work.

[Fat Freddy]

Originally Posted by no kudzu

...beware- deer do climb up stairs...

My next door neighbor feeds them some kind of grain-cereal mixture.

If she forgets to put it out, they come up on her porch and look in her windows.