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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:14:24 GMT
Probably more than anything else in the whole wide world! I've lived in this house for the last 41 years and never had a major animal problem. This year has been devastating. My husband has developed a new sport of 'flashlight hunting'--going around our 2 1/2 acre property after dark with a flashlight and spotting 'eyes' looking back at him. (We would never harm anything). I have 26 grow-bags of sweet potatoes at the back of the yard...this morning before daylight he spotted 3 deer sound asleep by the grow-bags. Those sweet potatoes have been eaten so many times that I am just going to empty the bags, save my soil and give up on sweet potatoes back there.
This photo was taken earlier today through my dining room window. The mother is across the street in the neighbors yard.
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:23:58 GMT
Just yesterday I was admiring my plants and so pleased that they had started to recover from the last time that they had been eaten down--(more like the last 3 or 4 times that they were eaten down). Today all the sweet potatoes in the outside garden have selectively been mowed to the ground. (They've already finished all the strawberries). This clump was really looking good!
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:29:15 GMT
Took out this entire patch--over and over. Sweet potato slips were larger when I planted them two months ago. I'm lucky that deer don't like watermelon or peppers.
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:33:30 GMT
Last-ditch effort. Maybe sweet potato cages will give the plants a little head start...
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:40:38 GMT
Fortunately, I do have a few sweet potatoes plants that are protected inside the hoop house frame. These are Korean Purple. I also have some Sweet White Japanese in there. This is how big all those eaten down ones should be.
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:43:22 GMT
This is my recently purchased Okinawan Purple slips--also in the protection of the hoop house frame...just have to keep gophers and rabbits away from these!
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:49:19 GMT
And these in containers on my patio have been safe (so far). These are special ones that I recently purchased--Kaukura and Makatea--and a few others.
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Post by june on Jul 25, 2021 17:55:48 GMT
I will just have to work around these set backs...and I do sympathize and understand why there suddenly seems to be so many animals. When I moved here, my house was 25 miles in the country. Now-days, many new additions have been built around me. The animals have no place else to go--so I think I just have to learn to grow the things that they are going to destroy in places that they can't get to it.
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Post by macmex on Jul 26, 2021 20:40:28 GMT
It's really tough when one has to deal with such critters eating the garden.
Here's an article I wrote on keeping deer out of the garden. When I get a chance I'll pass it over to this forum, as Homesteading Edu is going out of business.
Keep Deer Out of the Garden
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Post by nancygreenthumb on Jul 31, 2021 14:25:37 GMT
I learned long ago, dealing with my elk heard in AZ, that the only way to keep all the animals out of my garden was to put up an electric fence. Four strands in various heights from Elk on down to rabbits! They all learned each spring not to mess with the garden!
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Post by macmex on Jul 31, 2021 17:13:55 GMT
An electric fence can be a really good thing.
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Post by june on Jul 31, 2021 20:26:43 GMT
I use a broom to chase them off the back porch, but they come right back.
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Post by macmex on Jul 31, 2021 21:57:23 GMT
And when you are sleeping they have freedom to do as they please 
Deer can really wreak havoc on a garden.
My friend Ron (screen name: Heavyhitterokra), over on Green Country Seed Savers raises okra and other vegetables for market. Last year deer nearly wiped him out, but this year he put up a single strand of electric fence I think it's at about 25" height. He put some peanut butter on the strand at first, just to be sure the deer touched it with their noses. Apparently they did. He hasn't had any deer damage this year.
The problem with electric wires is getting the equipment and setting it up. But it does work.
I don't have need for an electric fence. I have the garden in a corner of the property where deer don't normally roam and we have livestock guardian dogs which guard the place, especially at night. They run the deer off.
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Post by june on Aug 1, 2021 12:22:51 GMT
I have just ordered all the parts I will need to put up an electric fence! Should be here in a few days. Hope I've got everything I will need to do it.
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Post by macmex on Aug 2, 2021 1:46:42 GMT
Yay! Keep us posted!
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