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As the grandsons and I were planting seeds for our fall pumpkin patch a few days ago, The Favorite, who has a knack for original thinking, had an idea.
"Grandpa, couldn't we grow poisonous pumpkins for the deer to eat?"
My mind dwelt for a moment on the unlikely existence of such a thing, and the disastrous potentialities of growing it should there be, but I just told him, "No."
After years of fighting to deny my vegetables and pumpkins to these cloven-hooved land pirates, my strategies against deer damage boil down to this: "Plant more than they can eat."
That's pretty lame, I know, and only works for me because I have the land for a huge garden plot, with the physical defenses of a pond on one side and a roadway and buildings on another. Yet still at dusk they ford the creek and cross the old pasture to test my defenses. Like the health insurance companies, I can only discourage, deny, and delay.
A corollary to my approach of planting more than deer can eat is "Give them sacrificial lambs." This accidentally worked this spring in my garden. I planted four different kinds of peas in rows somewhat distanced from each other. The deer got in and grazed on the first peas they encountered, which were a small, early type I cared least about. We are now enjoying bountiful pickings from the lucky three surviving types: English, snow and sugar snap.
I think I'll plant a small field of expendable pumpkins in an unused field toward the creek. This could backfire if it encourages their taste for pumpkins instead of satisfying it.
Because I plant so much I can afford to lose a few cabbages and sweet corn. But for home gardeners with small plots in the back yard, a couple of agile, hungry deer can wipe them out in one night.
Deer aren't partial to everything in my garden. They aren't keen on tomatoes, which is what I most look forward to. They don't bother potatoes, onions, peppers, cucumbers, zucchini or summer squash. You can find lists on the internet of what deer do and don't like to eat, and plant accordingly. Really, I think they will eat 'most anything.
When people ask if I hunt deer, I answer, "Yes. For revenge."
Outside of deer season, shooting is not a legal way to cull the herd unless you obtain a permit for crop damage from the game warden. It is effective, though. Just sayin'.
Fences are about as effective in keeping out deer as the Maginot Line was to Guderian's panzers in WWII. I have a more or less permanent tall hogwire fence at one end of my garden but I rely on electric fences, especially for our pumpkin fields. A tactic with which I've had some success is to put up parallel electric fences, a tall one inside and a short one outside. This relatively new method apparently confuses a deer's little brain, at least for awhile.
If you have access to any old chain-link fencing, lay it on the ground around your garden or along deer pathways. Deer hate to step on it because it hurts their feet. Move it periodically or it becomes part of the turf.
I don't use odorous deer repellants, though I suppose they may help. Ah, the rising sun, the morning dew on the bean trellis and the acrid scent of coyote urine in your nostrils. You should buy some, if only out of pity on the poor guy who has to collect it.
If you want to spend your inflated dollars ordering solar-powered, motion-detecting gizmos to scare deer away, good luck. Stake your dog out instead. He'll keep them away.
When I was a little boy and my father asked what bedtime story I would like him to read, I always asked for the same one: "Bambi," the story of a sweet little fawn, as told in a Disney comic book. I may even have teared up when Bambi's mother didn't come back from the meadow. Call me hard-hearted, but that's the happiest part of the story to me now.
Say, do you suppose there is such a thing as a poisonous pumpkin?