the 'Grand Rapids' lettuce, the Romaine, the Swiss Chard, and they've been nibbling delicately at select leaves on the beets!! Up and down the rows, in the plantings farthest away from the house, are a number of little delicate hoof prints - and big chomps out of the product!! We've never had much of a problem with deer; too many dogs in the neighbourhood, we figured. Over the winter, our neighbours the Webers had to put down their big Akita, Sam. Well, old Sam may have been giving us more protection than we realized on the east side of the farm. And those darn deer have a real knack for nibbling the best, centre, juicy parts. Deer and critter repellents are a multi-million dollar business - but nobody is really happy with the results! So what to do? Can't spray a chemical deterrent on our crops. Don't have handy hook-ups for shooting water and things like that. Our friend Hugh Moffat swears by his good, old-fashioned scarecrows! Maybe we'll give that a try - with dangling, swinging-in-the-breeze CD's!
Hi, Aaron! We try to be mellow about all critters - they're just trying to do what they're suppose to. We try to grow enough to 'share' with all the neighbourhood critters. The deer really did a number on the lettuce, though. Our mistake, perhaps, for planting it so far away from the house, when we know they like it. We'll try the earth friendly scarecrow, first, as a solution.
ReplyDeleteAfter all our deer trouble this spring, all our green are under row covers now (keeps the chickens out too). Then I didn't notice a hole in one of the covers, and this weekend we found the loopers did almost as much damage as the deer (those bugs can eat a LOT in a hurry). Although they ate mostly oak leaf. Left our Lollo Rossa and Green Rapids head lettuce alone thankfully. Needless to say that cover is being replaced. Hope you figure out who your culprit is, in the meantime, the row covers can at least slow down whoever is browsing your greens.
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