I am trying an experiment in making a deer repelling device.
I saw some plastic vials in a garden catalog with a price of 20$ for 25
of them. You are supposed to hang them on plants.
I had some of the mainline drip watering hose left over and some of the
spray on deer stuff that smells like rotten eggs needs repeated
application. I cut 6 inch lengths of the pipe and bent them into a V.
First lesson, don't use electrical tape as it stretches when the sun
****nes on it. I went back with wire for those and a different tape fot
the others. I stuffed about 1/3 of a bounty towel up each leg of the v.
I mixed the repellant much stronger than normal 1:5 or so and then
saturated each stuffed piece of towel with the dilution.
I had some of the wires you hold insulation between joists and bent them
into a holder so I could slide the wire into the apex of the V. The
first batch of about 15, seem to work so I made another two dozen. I
replentished the original ones with repellant which had been out a week
or two. I am experimenting with hosta which the deer seem to be quite
fond of and some sedum they liked last year. I can put the device into
the middle of a hosta and it is very unobtrusive and not visible when
the hosta grows.
I have no idea if this will work but I thought why not try. I can
notice the smell when fresh, but it goes away in a day or two. The
inverted V should keep the stuff protected from the rain so I only have
to resoak the paper towel every couple weeks from a spray bottle. Note
get a spraybottle with a stream selection. The one I use now only
sprays so I have to get right up on the hose or spray my hands. The way
I designed the wire I flip them up to refill and they need to stay
upright for a minute or two for the stuff to soak into the towel.
If I have no deer damage over the next month I will consider it a
success since they did some minor browse damage earlier.
I will keep everyone posted.
The garden is fenced in with 7 foot deer netting now. Last year I tried
to get by with only 4 feet and that sometimes did not work. Actually it
only goes about 6 feet since I used 8 foot landscape timbers as posts.
When HD has them at 2 bucks they are the cheapest posts around. Only
snow peas in there yet to I don't know if that will work all summerlong
ornot. I have seen tracks on the woods side of the garden so I put some
of the repelling devices along that path to see if I can get them to
take a path farther in the woods which might keep them out of other
parts of the yard.
Wes.
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Wes Dukes (wdukes.pobox@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
reverse the . and the @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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