Gardening Takes Guts!

Choose Your Weapon....

In the process of choosing young veggie plants for my garden in recent weeks, I have had several conversations about garden security with other garden store patrons.

Over planting: Planting all you want and extra for the deer on the theory that even after the deer eat all they want, you’ll have enough left for yourself. Excellent theory, but when the deer find a a nice big cache of food, they don’t keep the location to themselves, no, no, no...deer are stupid, they tell their friends and soon you have three times the number of deer coming through your yard.

Fencing: The obvious and easy answer, but... many towns have so many rules and regulations about what kind of fencing you can use, it’s like trying to understand the federal tax codes. The fence can’t injure the animals it’s trying to keep out and it can’t be too high it case it looks offensive to absolutely anyone driving by. The best fence would be about five foot high with razor wire on the top, or nasty poison tipped spikes, but noooooo...... somebody, who shouldn’t be near your garden stealing squash in the first place, might get injured, so no razor wire or poison tipped spikes.....picky, picky, picky....

Wagon planting: My mother-in-law does this. You buy old kiddie wagons and plant your veggies in them. This gives you a mobile garden! You can bring the garden in at night. Or hide your plants anyway you want. The added benefit is you can garden from your lawn chair. Just wheel the wagon up and start digging.

Hanging Gardens: You can plant almost anything in hanging baskets. Not a bad idea if you have a big porch. You can hang your garden all around and sleep on the porch with a shotgun in case the deer try to come up the steps. The two positive side effects are; 1] you could get a freezer full of venison, 2] neighbors will never bother a man crazy enough to guard his zucchini with a shotgun.

Roof Top Gardening: I haven’t seen this yet, but it’s a matter of time. If you have a flat section of roof, with a little partial shade, what better location for a deer and rabbit proof garden? The roof isn’t doing anything but covering your house, so why not put it to some real good use with a roof top garden? If the deer and bunnies are smart enough to get a ladder and get onto a roof top garden then you'd better move out of that area as soon as possible.

El Camino Gardening: After roof top gardening, this is probably the best option for critter proof gardening. Buy an old El Camino and plant your garden in the back. This way you can keep an eye on your tomatoes wherever you go. Plus, how easy it will be to show off your garden if it’s right there with you at the hardware store.

Seawall Gardening: Popular in the coastal towns, but only for locals. Pile clam shells and seaweed in three foot high walls around your garden with strings of decorative fly strips overhead. The smells of the sea products will obfuscate the smells of tender pea shoots and the confused deer will leave feeling foolish that they mistook a clambake for a garden. Naturally they won’t mention it to their friends because that’s just downright embarrassing for a deer to mistake the smell of seaweed for pea shoots.

Sherlock Holmes Garden: Sherlock Holmes said, “The best place to hide something is in plain sight.” I believe that. I have a theory, not in any book, that deer can find gardens not only by smell, but by pattern recognition. When they see straight lines of vegetation, they see buffet dinner. This year, I will be staggering my plantings to make them appear random. Plus, I’m surrounding my garden with big cat poop. Yes, you heard right.... ‘google’ it yourself, it’s proving out in gardens across America. Deer instinctively avoid areas where they smell evidence of a natural predator like a big cat. Cougar poop is selling like hot cakes in California. I will be making my first poop purchase soon. I’m not sure about Cougar poop because the deer here on Shelter Island are pretty smart and I know they’ve never seen a cougar, so I’m thinkin’ Lion or Tiger....