This morning’s article was the second in a two-part series on keeping deer out of your garden and landscaping.  Two weeks ago, my article discussed plant choice and garden design as methods of deterring deer.  Today, I discussed commercial and homemade deer deterrents and fencing.

I mentioned a double fence as a non-electric fencing choice and this is the method we used to fence off the vegetable garden in our last house.  The garden had an existing 4′ tall fence; we built another fence 4′ outside of that one, using logs as posts and plastic deer netting for the fence itself.  The outer fence was about 8′ tall.

This double fence did an excellent job of keeping deer out, even though the garden had a mini orchard of apple trees bordering it that were highly attractive to deer.  I don’t think we ever had a deer get in while we lived there.

Plastic deer netting has the advantage of being nearly visible, but, if you use it, it’s a good idea to place white flags on it at a height of 4’ and at 12’ intervals for the first few months to train the deer to avoid it.  Otherwise, deer may not see the netting and go straight through it.

The white flags let the deer know the fence is there, but also mimic the signal whitetail deer give each other to warn of danger, where the deer flip up their tails and wave them from side to side.