Like every other grower here, I have fought deer for years. Ive pissed, shit, had my dog piss and shit, bought shit, cut mine and my dogs hair all for nothing.

Like everyone else Ive sprayed every repellent on the market on my plants to experience zero effect. Ive had plants eaten within 4 hrs of being drenched in Deer Away. Ive hung up garlic and peppers and upside down crosses with no effect. I have some sites that either the plants get caged or get eaten, period.


This year i found something that worked and I wanted to pass it on for you to try.

There are a number of weeds in my area that arent eaten by any grazing animals.. One plant is called "queens lace" and is a form of hemlock that can be growing in a cattle lot and they wont touch it. Another one and the one that I chose is a plant called"gymson weed"(not sure about spelling, Jymson, Gympson?). Its seeds are hallucinagenic and I have never seen any animal attempt to eat it. Not a goat, cow or horse. I have a buddy that used the hemlock in his mixture.

Our idea was to try and make our plants smell like the plant that we know they wont eat.

I chopped up about 1/2 pound worth of weed stems and leaves, put it in my wifes blender, (she's still pissed) and puree'd it with a 1/2 quart of water. After soaking a bit and blending it well, i drained off the liquid and discarded the solid material. I put the liquid back in the blender, added a half cup of Neem oil, (as a surfacant) and blended the hell out of it.

I sprayed it on some test plants hoping that the scent from the plant the deer wont eat would adhere to my new transplants. The result was absolutely amazing. Neither I nor my buddy had a single leaf off of a single plant eaten. Not one of the seven untreated plants between the 2 of us lasted 2 weeks but the sprayed plants remained untouched.. Its my belief that the deer smelled the plant and believed it to be the gymson weed and the hemlock, that it doesnt eat.

I have now looked around and see that there are a great number of plants that deer clearly aren't eating. After my results, Im collecting some material from those plants for my freezer for spring usage. Ive found one stinky plant called "milk weed" that has a sticky, milky fluid that may not have to have a surfacant mixed with it and one that clearly the deer aren't eating. Ill let you know in the spring, but I would look around and see what's available to you. This works.

If you have deer problems, this is a cheap and seemingly effective approach. Im amazed by the results.One test isnt proof positive, but it was successful enought that I wll do it again for shure. You have to reaply with heavy rain, but it seems to be worth it. There have to be plants in your areas that grazing animals won't eat. Look at cattle farms and notice any weeds that the cows havent' eaten as a cow, horse, sheep or goat will eat almost anything.

[Ulysses]

Good one!

A few more plants deer don't like:

Purple Coneflower
Coreopsis
Iris
Daffodil
Vinca
Dianthus
Yucca
Dusty Miller
Foxglove
Zinnia

Caution! Some plants and flowers are 'dirty' and will throw seeds, seedcoats, fluff and other detritus that will stick to your plants resins and in general, make a royal mess. Also, you don't want to plant mj under a plant that has edible berries as birds sit up there, eat the berries and deficate on your buds- the 'guano' often sits in the crux of a branch and rots the stem...

Outdoors is tough work and a good spot may take several seasons to develop well...

[LazLo]

silverback

Beware of jimson weed. All parts of the plant are toxic, most especially the seeds. Every year people die after ingesting them or teas made from leaves. It has haulucinagenic properties. It is a member of the "datura" family and they are all toxic.

Milkweed is the only plant that the monarch butterfly uses. They lay their eggs, 1 per leaf, 3 or 4 per plant. The larvae hatch, eat the plant and the plant toxins prevent any predator from eating them, even as butterflys.

Queen Anne's lace is a member of the carrot family. Flowers can be used in salads. Seeds can be used in bread baking. Tastes like caraway.

I'd stick with the Queen Anne's lace. The others could be worse than chemicals.

Ulysses

I used to think deer wouldn't eat zinnias. Last year after they topped my tomato and rat turd chili pepper, they hit the zinnias. This year they hit the wild geraniums next to marigolds next to the wall. And that was in my yard! The tomatoes and peppers are surrounded by hardware cloth and deer netting this year.

Foxglove is also a dangerous plant. Acts like digitalis. Castor bean is another toxic plant that deer leave alone but they can get as big as trees. Who needs that kind of shade?

Good luck to everyone this season.

Revisions are the key to a successful life.

Hey up, I think your on the right track Silver but Jimson weed is pretty dangerous stuff to bring into kitchen, read Carlos Castenada's Yaqui way of knowledge if you want to fly like an eagle. Also Socrates was poisoned by Hemlock. Any one tried ferret shit, it certainly works on rabbits & hares, it stinks, lasts for ages. Deers are a bit like giant rabbits!
, what about docks they dont like them either. Lead works well,they dont come back.

[Climbinghigh]

yeah I'll second, or third that warning on jimson weed, look up the history of Jamestown Virginia- colonial days- Jamestown massacre ring a bell? I know Jerry Garcia and Charles Manson played with Datura back in the day- but nothing I would want to touch from what I've read.

I really like the idea of a homemade natural repellant though. Lots of weird alkaloids in milkweed, not sure if I would spray my buds with it as it may not wash off readily. And anything related to Poison hemlock might not be good- isn't that what Aristotle, or yeah maybe Socretes drank? Queen Anne's Lace- aka wild carrot, aka Daucaus carota carota if thats what you're talking about is probably safe, but I had a pheno of Afghan x Moroc that smelled like fresh carrots and got destroyed by mice outdoors ):

Anyone try common yarrow(Achillea millefolium)? seems like deer stay away from that and common tansy (Tanacetum vulgare), Iv'e read-I think- in you're mold prevention thread SB that tansy works for that too. I hope this thread pulls some miracle cures out of the woodwork- great idea!

[Jochsmokes]

I've been useing:
1 raw egg/1gal water left out for 24hr strained Sprayed weekly during veg.
Had 30 plants sprayed egg water on 25.
Now i only have 25 others where eaten one month into veg.
I learned this from an apple grower near by he mixes 1dozen eggs in a 200 gl spayer and makes a liquid fence around his orchard with it!
Crazy stuff we do to stay ahead of those furry bastards! JS

[apparachi]

Think im going to have to try the egg scenario, I wonder how long its good for..

[Former OGer]

I am on my fifth year of no trouble with liquid fence...a great product for 12 bucks. I spray it on my plants till they start to bud, and then only on surrounding vegetation.

[supersonic]

From start I also used 20% egg, 80% water mix, unstrained. The idea came from Guide for insects and pest prevention thread. It's sticky, so apparachi you may take a look there, you'll find infos in Backcountry's post. Later I changed to some expensive deer repelent from store, which is not applied on plants, but is put around on some clothes or simillar. No deer damage.

Hey all
I hear you on the jimson weed, although I dont think there was any problem as I stopped spraying the plant by the time it was 2' or alitte bigger and they're big plants now. Im not even sure the leaves i sprayed are still on the plant.Jimson weed is some stinky shit and the juice is sort of oily. The smell in penetrating similar to salmon or sardines. Even after its gone you can smell it. My wife says ive ruined her blender. I was gonna confiscate it in the name of science anyway.

Climbinghigh, Im testing the milk weed liquid as I write. What kind of alkaloids? I'm figuring that there is probably something different about all of these weeds that grazers don't eat or they would be eating them. They're either poison of they stink or something.

The thing is, this is the only approach Ive taken that actually shows some promise of working. If I can make my plant smell bad to the deer, then the cages will be unecessary. Cages are a pain in the ass. Former Og, my deer here drink liquid fence. It doesnt' stop them, and ss, I may as well use a dozen rotten eggs it wouldn't matter, .