Deer VS Your Garden

Rural Combat: How to Keep Deer Out Of Your Vegetable Garden!

By Barbara Fix, Researcher & Writer for Lipscomb Enterprises Inc.

There are few things more beautiful than a deer gracefully moving through its habituate. On the other hand, catching them feasting on a vegetable garden that represents weeks or months of hard work might have you wondering if a little venison stew might not be nice.

Living on a homestead in northern Idaho, where white tail deer are so abundant it’s a top US destination for hunters, brought a dilemma. I loved their company on my small seven acre property, and even more so after a doe brought her twins over for a visit.

But, I told myself, soon I would be forced to be more practical, for spring was approaching and the peace the deer enjoyed while eating the wild grasses on the property could soon become a problem if they turned their interest to my newly planted heirloom garden. Asking the advice of the locals brought several possibilities. I could install an inexpensive 8-foot fence of T-posts strung with wire. And an electric fence was proposed by many. But I was intentionally setting up the homestead to be independent from the electrical grid. I could get a dog with attitude that would drive off the deer…problem was, dogs need sleep. For the most part, the white tail deer in the vicinity tended to be late-night marauders.

It wasn’t until I was picking up a load of wheat that the answer was revealed. As I watched the farmers goats happily head-butting each other off a mound of log rounds, I noticed something unusual about his fence system. It turned out it was a solar “electric” fence, something I’d never heard of before. As it turned out, solar electric fencing doesn’t draw all that much power which meant it wouldn’t hurt the deer, but it would improve their garden manners. It seemed like the perfect fit. The farmer’s experience, even in northern Idaho where winters are long, was that his solar fence system had been dependable year after year. Now I was convinced! Solar fencing was independent of the grid, fairly inexpensive, dependable, and easy to install…worked for me!