Tops are gone, ruined or not?

[Puregoodtomatoes]

Ok folks, What do I do now? Half of my tomatoes are chewed off, by from what I think is a deer. Will these plants regrow? What do I do? I'm really upset, I probably lost 40 nice heirlooms of different varieties. If I leave them will they continue to grow or not be productive?

Second question... Any advise to keep these critters away? I'm trying hot pepper wax and garlic...

Thanks

[barkeater]

First thing you've got to do is protect the other half that will be chewed the next day or so. Hot pepper wax and other deer repellents need to be reapplied every time it rains.

You may want to spend the $100 now for an electric fence and battery. It should last about 8-10 years. The deer aren't going to go away. They will get worse.

You don't say how chewed or old your plants are, but if they got the growing tip down near the ground, they will grow back (with protection), but your tomatoes will be at least a month later, and may have a much reduced yield.

[HakaiRah]

Tomato Recovery

The above link goes to a blog post documenting the recovery of one of my brandywine tomatoes. A cold snap lead to the top breaking off, but it came roaring back. At its worst it was literally just a stalk.

[Puregoodtomatoes]

Your plant did bounce back nice. My plants are young, but on some of them they are missing more. I'll leave then be.

Darn deer. I will be checking in to an electric fence as well

[HakaiRah]

This is my first year gardening, and my garden has been mauled as well so you have my sympathy. Good luck with your defenses.

[organichris]

There are a few things you can do to keep deer away. Some of the measures work with varrying effectiveness, depending on the deer. Some are more acclimated to humans than others.

If you have a dog, you can use its hair and/or allow it to mark its territory around your garden. Your own urine may also work, or I think they still sell wildcat urine but its probably expensive.

You can also use dishwashing liquid or other soaps on the ground around - not in - your garden.

I personally like to use blood meal. You can just sprinkle it everywhere, including in your garden. They don't like that smell. It is advised that you sprinkle it very liberally without having heavier concentrations of it in the garden, because you don't want to encourage other animals to dig up your garden looking for food. Broadcasting it everywhere - including the area surrounding the garden - should prevent this.

[sands4evr]

The best defense against deer are human hair and a little noise. Spread the hair around your garden and place a radio somewhere near your garden and let it play when you aren't around. The combination of human smell and voices creates a humane barrier that will not peak their curiosity at all. I wish you luck. Blood meal works great, but attracts some other critters. Swing by the local hair salon and ask for a bag of hair. I've used this method when I plant any kind of legume. It seems a little wierd, but I assure you it works.

[robin303]

I built a custom deck for this lady. She had a nice garden. She hung bars of soap about every 10' around her yard to repel the dear. She said it works. I thought she was a clean freak at first before I asked.

[Puregoodtomatoes]

How does a person tell the difference between deer damage and woodchuck damage?

[sands4evr]

If it is a deer you will see their hoof prints. They are easy to spot because they are sharp little guys. Woodchucks lumber around therefore making more of a sweeping foot print (so to speak).

[piegirl]

what about caging your plants? I use coffee cans around my plants when they are small and then place the cages when they are larger. Piegirl

[PaulF]

With several kinds of wildlife in my area, I put up a seven foot tall plastic mesh deer fence. The fence itself was fairly inexpensive, about $10/100 feet. The steel posts were in the $3 range. Since the posts were only five feet tall, I was lucky enough to have a source of broomsticks to cable-tie together to get the seven foot height. To secure the bottom, I used a $5 box of those U shaped wire landscape fabric anchors. Total cost was about $80 and this is the second year without deer, woodchucks, rabbits, squirrels, turkeys, raccoons, foxes or stray dogs in the garden.

I always had chicken wire fences to keep out the rabbits, but the deer just stepped over that. Even in our backwoods little village, electric fence is prohibited by law. That, in con★★★★★★★★ with chicken wire may be more economical, but in lots of towns, illegal as well as dangerous for the grandkids (yours or the neighbors).

[ddsack]

If the same deer regularly come through your yard, they get used to noises like radios and human voices. We now have a herd of 8 deer (maybe more since fawning has happened) and they don't mind human activity. If I walk slowly towards them, I have gotten as close as 30 feet before they run. We have 15 acres of woods, and live in an area where there is still a fair amount of undeveloped land, so it's not like they have no place else to go. I know they can hear our voices and TV through the open windows at night, and that doesn't prevent them from coming right up onto the cement pad under our 2nd floor deck to eat my petunias and ornamental plants in pots.

We don't have a dog anymore, but unless the dog was kept loose outdoors all night to give chase, the deer were not impressed with dog poop laying around.

I have two electric fences for my vegetable gardens, one runs off of house current. The other garden, too far to run a cord, runs off of a big marine battery. My oval flower bed out in the yard has a mesh deer fence suspended from four shepards hooks. Doesn't look that great, but oh well.

I'd be surprised if any chemical repellent works for very long. And I've had deer munch the tops of jalapeno plants and even pieces of peppers. Anything chemical will dilute and dissipate soon.

Fence. Fence. Fence. Some kind of fence.

[barkeater]

PaulF,

Are you sure that all electric fences are banned? I realize ones run off house current can be dangerous, but the ones run off a battery aren't.

[kelleyville]

I have deer but they have not been a problem yet as they run at the first sign of me or a dog! I got murdering grasshoppers and katy-dids all over and was upset when I sat out four plants that were going into holes to get accustomed to their new location and came back a couple hours later and these murderers had eat a Big Zac and a Mortgage lifter!

i had a neighbor who used soap hanging in the trees and swore by it, also supposed to keep other critters out of the trees from eating fruit. She saved all her bar soap scraps for this purpose or cut slices from a new bar. She did say to use more than one kind of soap too!

A hunter freind has planted a crop away from my garden to attract deer, do you have enough room for that? That and the fence mentioned earlier should keep them out! There are also a lot of plants you could plant outside your garden that deer are not supposed to like!

The urine thing works too. We are in the country so I just tell my stepson to quit running in and out to use the bathroom and gave him a perimeter to mark!

I hope you were able to save some of your plants! This post has me moving my dogs to new locations though just in case!

Kelley