# Things deer DON'T like to eat.



## bennypapa

I have an opportunity to use about an acre of garden space.
The owner doesn't use it because of deer. They have eaten everything he ever planted aside from onions.

Trouble is it is a 45 minute drive one way from my house.
I have kids and cub scouts and and and.
I won't be able to get up there but about once a month and I'm not gonna fence it. Anything I grow will have to be fairly maintenance free.

OH, this is Central Kentucky BTW. Zone 6b. Fairly open, just up hill from a creek. Bluegrass region clay type soil un improved.

I'd like to grow something there but it will have to be something that deer don't like.

I'd like to get some suggestions on what to plant. Doesn't have to be a people edible or even an edible at all. I plan to grow some flax just to see what it looks like.

Here are my ideas so far:
Peppers - I like green chilis, jalepenos, bells, all types. I never have enough room or sun in my tiny backyard garden
onions
flax
sunflowers

a trap crop for the deer. What do they like? (OK, OK, what do they like MOST) I'll probably pant the trap in succession or a variety of trap crops so they always have something to munch on instead of the stuff I like to eat

I might like to grow some bird food. I like the safflower and oil sunflower seeds. I like the birds that they attract.

so, Given that I can't afford to fence this plot, what should I grow?

A wanna be farmer,
Ben


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## AverageJo

deleted


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## chamoisee

Hellebores. These will seed, and the plants sell for good money, the last time I looked.


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## springvalley

I would say don`t bother. > Thanks Marc


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## Danaus29

Hate to tell you but deer love sunflowers. They've eaten mine that were less than 50 feet from the road.

Best use of it IMO would be to plant a deer food plot and set up a tree stand.


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## Molly Mckee

I'd second the "don't bother. Any smaller plants not fenced here the deer either eat or pull out trying to decide if they like them. We use liquid fence on fruit trees, and have a 7+ foot fence around our garden!


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## notbutanapron

No fencing, no irrigation {I'm assuming?}, no deer, no no no.... yeah... maybe start with a pot and then work up to an acre. 

Also remember in growing bird food without fences: wild birds love bird food too.


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## rxkeith

the only thing i have grown that the deer won't touch is garlic. onions they will eat, but not garlic. if you plant garlic, though, some care will be necessary keeping the area weeded. anything else, deer will probably eat.



keith


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## Paquebot

This sort of reminds me of our local community gardens situations. Some show up in mid-May to plant in lovely loose silt. A month later they return and try to find where everything is that they planted. After a few hours of that, they leave and return a month later and what had been their garden plot is now a neatly-mowed "lawn". Even the deer find nothing that they like.

Martin


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## rockhound

I will have to agree, once a month is not enough time tending ANY garden unless some ornamental or herb can be found that deer won't eat and you will be able to harvest something from it in the fall. Maybe you can just put it in pasture of some kind and let someone graze their animals there once a month.


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## tentance

what about different kinds of onion and garlic? there are so many. like the giant one with flowers the size of children! think of the gifts for all the chefs and gardeners in your family.


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## where I want to

The trouble with anywhere the deer are already used to checking for food is that they train their offspring to go there too. So to get them to stop means investing in either fencing or plantings that they do not like then waiting for a generation to come along that does not go there anymore.There are some things that deer tend not to eat here. One is huckleberry, although I have seen deer browse some on the flowers. Rhododenron is rarely eaten. Fruit trees that have grown large enough to be above their reach. Iris are pretty well ignored. Some ferns seem proof against deer. Ceanothus is ignored as is spirea. But frankly, I think deer will eat anything in the right circumstances.


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## semimoonman

bennypapa, We a garden with too small of a fence, and every year have to decide what to plant outside of the fence. Here's what we've found has worked:
- garlic
- onions
- peppers (sweet and hot)
- mustard greens (particularly Green Wave)
- tomatillos
- asparagus
- herbs (basil, cilantro, sage, mint, etc)
- raspberries and blackberries (at least they have enough trouble with them that we got most)
- artichoke

This year I also experimented with growing short, alternating rows of things deer (and land beaver and rabbits) like and things they don't with success. I planted a border of onions and cilantro on the outside of the bed, then alternated rows (~3' long) of deer-repellent veggies and veggies they love. Here are my rows

deer-repellent:
Green Wave Mustard (this tastes like horseradish and wasabi when raw and sweet when cooked--that said most of it went back into the compost pile)
Mizuna
Arugula
Onions
Leeks

veggies deer like:
carrots
beets

This worked really well. A couple of carrot leaves got eaten, but nothing else.


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## EDDIE BUCK

Out of all my years gardening in deer country,they have never bothered my Irish potatoes,but I would not bet against them eating my next crop.


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## Paquebot

EDDIE BUCK said:


> Out of all my years gardening in deer country,they have never bothered my Irish potatoes,but I would not bet against them eating my next crop.


If they are not used to eating from gardens, there are a lot of things which disagree with their digestive systems. However, that can change after they sample a few such items. They soon learn just how much they can eat without getting sick. Deer normally drop their manure as tight pellets. The deer which raid our community gardens drop it loose like a cow. They will eat both potato and tomato foliage but only a few bites of each. If you aren't watching certain plants daily, you would probably not notice that the ends of some branches have been nipped off or a small green tomato is missing.

Martin


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## bennypapa

"""Best use of it IMO would be to plant a deer food plot and set up a tree stand."""

The landowner would like this. He's an avid bow hunter.


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## nebula5

It really depends on your deer. Mine won't eat garlic, onions, mint, sage, or hot peppers. They generally won't eat cilantro until the late fall, when there's less food available. Everything else is fair game to them- including leeks, sweet peppers, tomatoes, kale, cabbage. Their favorites are beets, beans, parsley, and, strangely, young okra plants. A high fence is the only thing that has worked for us.


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## bja105

Potatoes might work, since deer don't usually kill them, and they don't need constant care. Plant them, hill them a few weeks later, and mulch everything to keep the weeds down. 

One of my gardens is 50 miles away, and I only see it on weekends. I have done well with potatoes, winter squash, and watermelons, all mulched with waste hay. Tomatoes, beets, beans, salad greens, peas, carrots all needed more frequent weeding or harvesting for my 'absentee' gardening to work well. 
I have an electric fence around my garden. A solar electric fence can be put up cheaply and quickly. Some peanut butter on aluminum foil hung on a hot wire will train deer to stay away.


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## semimoonman

I forgot to mention potatoes--the deer around here leave them alone, too.

Also, I remember talking to a woman who had a simple deer "fence" solution. Make a "fence" of a single strand of rope about eye level for a deer. Make another "fence" in the same manner three feet from the other one. 
Supposedly, this confuses a deer's depth perception, and it won't jump over. Has anyone done this before?


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## K.B.

If you can't afford to fence the whole acre, could you fence a small section of it (~1-2000 sq ft)? This would give you a decent size garden to plant any annual veggies you want without being too expensive?

If I recall, using 4' welded wire fencing around about a half acre on my property, was about~$600. I used the double fence system (moat) that I think Semimoonman is referring to. If the fences are ~5' apart, the deer around here don't jump them. The theory is that they can jump high or far, but not both. It's worked for me for the last couple years.

Another option, depending on how long you think you will have access to the property would be to plant a combination of annuals/perennials low growing crops and a widely space overstory of trees. For example, standard size apple rootstock can be had for a ~$2 each and planted on a spacing of ~40' (16 for the acre). Plant the rootstock this coming season and get one of us on HT or elsewhere to send you some scions for grafting. A 4-5' diameter circle of cheap fencing will keep the deer away from the trees while they are getting established. 

While the trees are growing up over the years, you can still hand plant or use machines to prep and plant the remainder of the space to a feed plot (grasses, legumes, corn, sunflowers, sunchokes, daikons, turnips, etc...).


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## where I want to

semimoonman said:


> I forgot to mention potatoes--the deer around here leave them alone, too.
> 
> Also, I remember talking to a woman who had a simple deer &quot;fence&quot; solution. Make a &quot;fence&quot; of a single strand of rope about eye level for a deer. Make another &quot;fence&quot; in the same manner three feet from the other one.
> Supposedly, this confuses a deer's depth perception, and it won't jump over. Has anyone done this before?


Some of my fencing is two rows of 4 ft woven wire set 4 fet apart. It has worked well except to the two times I left a gate open. Then trying to get deer out is difficult.


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## Danaus29

The deer here are really fond of mint and potatoes. Sunchokes, sunflowers and milkweed are preferred foods. They haven't yet bothered the okra but okra needs to be picked frequently.

And apparently I now have either a deer or groundhog that has developed a taste for leeks. I'm hoping it's a 'hog. Those can legally be trapped and killed now.


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## Paquebot

Danaus29 said:


> And apparently I now have either a deer or groundhog that has developed a taste for leeks. I'm hoping it's a 'hog. Those can legally be trapped and killed now.


Rabbits will eat both leeks and onions here, especially in the winter. So far, only garlic is spared among the alliums. 

Martin


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## zwarte

how about pumpkins? or peanuts or squash?


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## Danaus29

Teeth marks weren't consistent with rabbit. More torn/shredded than clean cut. Although it was the rabbit that ate the pansies I had in the same bed last winter.


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## Paquebot

zwarte said:


> how about pumpkins? or peanuts or squash?


Pumpkins and squash would probably be safe unless there were nothing else to eat. Peanut vines just like alfalfa to deer. Went over a 4' fence to get at those and sweet potatoes a couple years ago.

Martin


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## semimoonman

Paquebot said:


> Rabbits will eat both leeks and onions here, especially in the winter. So far, only garlic is spared among the alliums.
> 
> Martin


Funny the timing on this. When I went out to the garden this morning, the onions outside of the garden had been munched, probably by deer. Never happened before but we've never left stuff out this late.


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## Fat Charlie

Plant something for the deer (and the landowner) and some potatoes for yourself.


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## EDDIE BUCK

Paquebot said:


> Pumpkins and squash would probably be safe unless there were nothing else to eat. Peanut vines just like alfalfa to deer. Went over a 4' fence to get at those and sweet potatoes a couple years ago.
> 
> Martin


Yep they love peanuts.Also theres a twenty acre sweet potato field in front of my house.The deer started hitting them as soon as the slips were set out,and ate them until the potatoes were plowed up.Then ate the potatoes and now are pawing out what potatoes the plow missed.


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## chamoisee

Also any narcissus or daffodil is poisonous; even pocket gophers won't eat them. They don't require a lot of care and I guess you could sell them as cutflowers.


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## frankva

Sometimes I think deer will eat rocks.


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## doodles

I have never had them eat limas or butter beans here


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## paqcrewmama

This past summer, the deer decimated and destroyed my garden eating things I NEVER thought they'd eat: garlic, leaves on zucchini and cucumbers (not the prickly stems), tomatoes and rhubarb.
Yep, the rhubarb has a toxin in the leaves and they ate them. They tried the onion tops pulling out the onions before deciding they weren't to their liking. 
My brother took out a large doe but our mild winter last year has left a large population that is devouring everything in sight. He couldn't believe they ate the rhubarb. 

To that end, I don't think there is much that is sacred to a deer.


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## Mike CHS

I didn't realize how old this post was till I went back to mine. It is deer season though. LOL
I planted 15 fruit trees in what I planned to be my little orchard when we moved in to our place last year. Deer graze to within feet of the backdoor and left them alone until last month. They ate most of the smaller growth completely off to the trunk. The only thing they left alone was two cherry bushes. 

Our place has not been hunted in many years and is way over populated. I have put 3 in the freezer this season so I guess it's a trade off.

This picture was taken without a zoom lens.


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## 606JAE

I think deer will eat anything. Several years ago some people from church ended up having a pet deer for awhile. That deer would even eat pepperoni pizza and makeup.


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## Fetherhd

One of the lodges I used to work at used to put their leftovers and scraps out for the deer....one of the weirdest things they LOVED was pickles...yeah a five gallon bucket lasted just minutes....they also loved blueberry pie and sausage gravy and eggs! 0.o


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