I’m a newby from Texas

[Beekissed]

I honestly haven’t thought of that. I was thinking more of being able to hunt oh my own land. I guess putting a fence up around the garden is the only way to keep it safe then. Or is there other options that are better?

It's pretty simple and effective to just run a single strand electric fence at about knee height to a man around your garden and orchard. No need to bait the string or put strings on it to increase visibility...it's best if it remains invisible to them until they blunder into it or sniff it out of curiosity. Keep that fence energized throughout your garden season and you'll not have a single deer in that plot.

We've been using that method for around 45 yrs with good results. Deer are curious by nature and will sniff a barrier before trying to cross over it. Once bit on the nose, they and their kin startle like they've been shot and will not return to investigate that "biting" place.

A basic fence charger costs around $30, so it's a real cheap and effective intervention. If you don't have electric nearby, they make chargers that can run off a car battery and also solar chargers.

 

[tortoise]

We live in deer country, so we checked with county extension before starting a garden. They told us that electric fence for deer work better if the fence is up before the garden is started - so we did that. Our garden fence is 8 feet tall, 4 strands of electric and a ground wire about knee level. We had one deer in the fence this year - our 4th year - and I fervently hope that one was killed during hunting season.

 

[Britesea]

We had a game warden tell us the best way was similar to what Bee said, only he added a few pieces of foil spread with peanut butter to the strand. First time they lick the foil and get zapped- after that he claimed they will stay away from anything that smells like peanut butter, so you just run a bit along the wire, replacing as rain washes it away. I doubt that's very often considering how hard it is to wash out peanut butter jars, lol.