The epic garden battle: Woman vs. Deer

A few weeks ago, I was wandering around the garden when I noticed some missing cherry tomatoes.  My immediate response was 'Nooo! Tomato hornworms!'

But after inspecting the plants carefully, I couldn't find any sign of a horn worm.  And it struck me as odd that all of the damage was just on one side of the tomato plants.

Missing cherry tomatoes?

That's when I glanced down and noticed the following footprint on the ground:

Deer print in the garden.

DEER!!!  A darned deer had gotten into my garden.  With this realization I ran around the rest of the garden and noticed all of the other damage -- multiple missing tomatoes, some munched peppers, a bunch of 'pruned' bush beans.  A deer can do a LOT of damage in a short amount of time.

Prior to this, our 4 foot fence was enough to keep the deer out. Yes, a deer CAN jump it, but I think it just didn't seem worth the effort to them before. I mean, I have PLENTY of tasty flowers that they had been eating on the other side of the house.  But now the deer has worked up the nerve to enter the garden and taste my delicious crops. Which means it will be back.

I entered panic/trouble-shoot mode.  I needed an immediate (and cheap) solution to keep the deer from returning in the evening and causing even more damage.

So here is what I did:

I had some 8 foot 2x2's laying around, so I attached a few of them to some of the 4 foot posts with screws.  I then strung  clothes line at 6 feet and 8 feet.  Next, I tied some strips of white fabric to the line.

Not the prettiest anti-deer wall.

Now, it's really not much of a physical barrier, but the deer won't know that.  I'm hoping it will be more of a visual barrier to them -- if it looks like a wall, it should prevent them from trying to jump in.

Would you jump into this?

Two weeks later -- I have found plenty of deer prints outside of the garden, but we have had no more deer visit inside the garden. Looks like this strategy is working out just fine!