Here’s an interesting fact. It is estimated that in 1900 there were only 500,000 white tail deer in the entire U.S. Now the estimates range as high as 30 million. The State of Georgia believes that 1.2 million of them live in Georgia. I’m beginning to think that many of them use my garden as a buffet stopping point when they visit Blue Ridge.
I am convinced that deer were put on earth to be the scourge of rural gardeners. Not only are they numerous, but they tend to operate at times when humans don’t—dusk, dawn and at night. They very wary, have a good sense of smell and acute hearing. They eat almost anything. In the winter they will even eat the bark and tender twigs off fruit trees (which, obviously, is not good for said trees and for friendly relations with the gardener who is trying to grow them). Finally, they have the advantage of being cute which means that most women and many men look at you like you’re Jeffrey Dahmer if you even contemplate killing one. It’s that damn Bambi propaganda. Rural gardeners know them for what they really are: giant, voracious rats.
My second year here I put up a six foot high electric fence with a solar powered charger around my garden to protect it from predatory deer. (Predatory deer. That’s a redundant phrase. If you’re a deer, you’re predatory.)
The fence proved ineffective so this Christmas my oldest son gave me a fence charger which is good for 50 miles of fence wire. Since I only have about a half mile of fence wire around my garden I figured that was more than enough current to keep deer out of my garden. I tested it recently, and it gives off 7,000 volts. That’s enough current to induce sterility in small animals that pass too closely to it. Hell, that’s enough current to cause chromosome damage in adult males. If they installed this fence at the Mexican border it would solve illegal immigration. Foolishly, I believed that once I had that baby installed my deer problems were over.
My son also gave me a trail camera for Christmas. He and I mounted it to one of the garden fence posts facing into the garden. I was so confident I had the deer problem solved with my version of Old Sparky that I had not checked it since it was installed. Well, my son visited me this weekend, and just for the hell of it we pulled the chip out of camera to see what photos it had taken in the last three months. He popped the chip into his computer and began scrolling the through the pictures. The first two were my ugly mug turning the camera on. The third photo, taken six hours after I installed the camera, showed a deer strolling through my garden. Son of a bitch!
The camera revealed that my garden is the deer equivalent of a turnpike rest stop for deer passing through my property. I must have taken 250 photographs of deer in my garden. I have pictures of deer nibbling in the garden while Meredith and I are eating dinner. I have pictures of deer doing the tango. I have pictures of deer treating the trail camera like one of those four-for-a-dollar photo booths at the mall. I have pictures of deer laying in beach chairs under gaudy beach umbrellas sipping pina coladas. Maybe I’m exaggerating a little. Maybe the beach umbrellas were not that gaudy.
The point is that my high voltage, ultimate defense line, fry ‘em on the wire fence deterred exactly zero deer from getting in my garden. Needless to say this did not make me a happy camper. But I am not deterred. I refuse to be defeated by a four legged, rat-faced creature that is miles behind me on the evolutionary tree. I will deer-proof my garden come hell or high water.
So I did a little internet research. It turns out that a six foot fence is nothing for a deer. They can easily clear an eight foot fence and have been known on occasion to clear a ten foot fence. It is clear that I am going to have to build a 10 foot high fence around my garden. It may not keep out 100 percent of the deer but I can make sure it will take a deer Jesse Owens to get in. Unfortunately I cannot promise to make Mexico (or the deer for that matter) pay for it.
I am bound and determined to make my garden harder to get into than Area 51. When I’m finished it will feel like I’m gardening in a supermax prison.
The depressing thought is that once I get a handle on the deer problem I just know that some other critter or creature is going to rise up to attack my garden and torment me. Whoever said that gardening was a peaceful and tranquil hobby obviously never gardened in North Georgia.
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