We know a couple who puts up a fence to keep their kids out of the garden. But we'd rather our girls spend as much time in the garden as possible, so they learn to love vegetables and appreciate where they come from. However, that doesn’t mean we want our garden to be quite so open and welcoming to other species. Our first line of defense is a foot-wide border of wildflowers around the perimeter that creates a habitat for “good” insects like ladybugs that feast on the “bad” insects like aphids that chew holes in leafy greens to make our Swiss chard look like Swiss cheese.
But a few weeks ago we saw that we had a bigger problem: hoofprints in the garden. Hence, a fence. To keep the deer out, we string fishing line between metal fence posts, which doesn’t seem like it would be strong enough to keep a big doe from busting through. But whatever it lacks in strength, it makes up for in deer confusion. See, the deer only come into the garden at night (sneaky little devils), and they can’t see the fishing line in the dark. When they run up against it, it stops them in their tracks. Since they can’t see it, they don’t know how to get around it. After a few tries, they usually give up, which means we can leave a strategically-placed section open so we humans can come & go without having to open a gate. At least that’s how it worked last year. But now we apparently have track-star deer on our property; at least one has already jumped the fence to nibble on the sweet potatoes and green beans.
At the ground level we need a tighter barrier to keep out the woodchucks, so we use 18” high chicken wire. They primarily like to munch on plants that are members of the brassica family like cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and cabbage (aka the "gas-producing vegetables"). How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a wood chuck could chuck wood? We don’t know, but a he can really chuck up a garden!
