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You sure the deer are causing the problem or squirrels?
We have both in abundance and it is the squirrels that do the most damage.
I love to plant many varieties of sunflowers and rarely do I get to see a full crop in bloom. Squirrels on the giant sunflowers ar ethe worst.
Groundhogs will bend the plants over eat them.
what part of the season does the damage begin? If local farms have crop fields going the deer stay away from the garden.
Agree with that. I've been watching as the squirrels are stealing all of our apples from the two trees out back. We finally said "forget this" and picked them all off the trees and will hopefully be able to let them ripen on their own.
I haven't had time to review the entire thread but it caught my eye.
Get some dried hot peppers (cheap ones will work dollar store spices no salt) put about 1/4 cup of them in an old sock or a piece of panty hose in a bucket, add boiling water to fill, let it steep for a couple of hours, careful of your eyes.
take this mixture and add more water to it, then spray the sunflowers with it, the pepper juice doesn't hurt the flowers and will make them less tasty to the deer.
You may want to taste it yourself to see how hot it is.
Or try tobacco juice, buy a bag of cheap chewing tobacco, use about 2 fingers worth to a gallon of boiling water let that steep, use 1/2 of this mix and 1/2 water in a handheld sprayer, it stinks but it may work for you.
With the above start out putting the mix in a small spray bottle first, spray a small area and see what happens.
Agree with that. I've been watching as the squirrels are stealing all of our apples from the two trees out back. We finally said "forget this" and picked them all off the trees and will hopefully be able to let them ripen on their own.
This just happened to me. Somehow over the last couple of days the durn squirrels have stolen every single apple off of my two trees. I never caught them at it but noticed a couple of days ago that there were one or two apples half-eaten on the ground. I figured they had fallen off during the last thunderstorm and didn't think anything about it. I didn't realize the squirrels were actually stealing them off the branches. Too late now - they're all gone.
There are products out there that are motion sensors hooked up to your garden hose specifically designed to spray water at anything that moves..
Heres one such example =
I've had trouble with deer eating my corn for years, I finally asked at the local feed and seed store, they suggested I use Milorganite, an organic fertilizer that deer absolutely hate the smell of. I tried it, it worked better than expected, humans have to be really close to smell it and, to me, it really wasn't a really bad smell. Stopped the deer literally overnight-----now-----gotta find something for the raccoons!
Our garden is 100' by 100' and not only do we have deer to contend with we also have elk. They never bother the flowers but they love the melons and tomatoes. What worked for me was to place tomato cages around the garden,then I ran yarn from cage to cage and tied caution tape all along the yarn so that it would flap in the breeze. So far so good.
I have been using a product for the past several years with good results. It was called Deerskydd. Now I believe it may be called Plantskydd Plantskydd Deer Repellent - Rabbit Repellent - Vole Repellent
It stinks like you wouldn't believe but it seems to work. At least for us. Apparently it is made of some type of blood and it's supposed to smell like a predator is in the area. It's not really the smell that deters the deer but the fear of being eaten by a predator. The good news is that once it dries, you can't smell it but the deer can. It usually lasts us about 4 - 6 months depending on how much it rains.
There is a motion sensor sprinkler head called the "SCARECROW" that you set up near your garden and if it detects movement it will shoot out water which startles them. It might take you a few times not to walk out to the garden without disarming it but they are said to be safe & effective deterrents for deer.
I use these sprinklers and have had great results. They also have small heat detectors in them so they also work at nite.
The Fed Ex and UPS delivery people do not like them.
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but they are said to be safe & effective deterrents for deer.
