I used to fence the garden regularly, but for the past several years I tried to get away from doing it. I had purchased some electric deer repellers, but they were only moderately effective.
This year I decided to go back to my old fence setup. I put up a four foot fence and I thought I’d be okay, but the day after the fence went up, deer jumped over and dined on my young peas, so I added another two-foot section atop the four-foot one.
Set up and installation are not difficult. I use 7 ½ foot t-posts and tie the fencing onto the posts using jute twine. I don’t worry about having to stretch the fencing or make it super taut, as it’s only temporary and ease of set up and dismantle are very important. I use welding clamps to hold in the gate. The gate is just a panel made from fence wire.
We live in an area with a high deer population. While we don’t have roaming herds, seeing six to a dozen at a time is not unusual and we have a small family cluster that use our woods and would use our garden if allowed.
The fencing does come with a few drawbacks. Besides just the work of setup and take down, it limits garden access and makes lawn mowing more difficult. But we think the reward offsets the pain. The peas have recovered. The harvest amount will be a lot less than normal, but we have had no deer damage anywhere since we made the fence six feet tall.
I’ve been using a similar setup for quite a while now (6 feet tall), and I also have a rabbit fence around the bottom edge to keep the shorter critters out. After harvest, I roll it up so I can mow down the weeds and grass that have grown up, and then do it all over again the following season.
I wish you had shown a picture of the gate. I don’t even know what a welding clamp looks like. I googled it, but I’m still having trouble visualizing it.
After years of planting foods the deer wouldn’t eat — asparagus, onions, garlic, and herbs; my son John, and his friend Jenner constructed a t-post and wire fence for me so once I weed the neglected beds, I can freely plant ANYTHING!
we didn’t realize what our damage to our tomato and string plants was until I saw your photograph of the damage Thanks for the heads up. We haven’t seen any deer in the yard in a few years but I am sure they are still in our subdivision, we live in doe run.
A Rutgers Burlington County (NJ) Master Gardener in a presentation “Oh Deer” said to keep deer out, a fence needs to be at least 9′ high and 25 ‘ long. Having a second fence inside the first also helps. When using sprays, rotate 2 or 3. A deer may still sample the plants which have been treated, just to see if a plant really tastes as bad as it smells