We try to grow a year’s worth of potatoes, onions and tomatoes. These crops don’t excite the deer. Last year we just ran a string around the garden at deer-chest height, and that was enough to keep it safe.
But when Bob built raised beds, there’s suddenly room for beans, lettuces and spinach. And everybody loves lettuces, beans and spinach, so we fenced the garden. (It’s a black plastic mesh that doesn’t show up in photos, but it’s there).
A brown squirrel (which isn’t detered by fences, wire mesh or chicken wire) eats all the lettuces most every day. Bob’s trying to catch it with a Havahart trap. He would then heartlessly drown it in the ditch. He is ruthless.
But that’s not all. The beans were being ripped out of the ground and tossed aside. Who could be so mean? There were magpies in the Havahart two days in a row, and our neighbor clued us in: when beans first emerge, they look like worms.
The magpie plucks the worm, realizes that it’s a sprout, and tosses it aside… so two beds of beans under mesh.
And a coyote ate three chickens. I don’t mind fencing the vegetables, but I hate locking up the chickens.
you and Bob are so creative…..sorry about the chickens.
Sorry about your chickens. We use something called blood meal to deter bunnies and squirrels. Don’t know if that is something you might try.