I have another good suggestion for deer problems that worked great for me. Before I had to quit because of health problems, I grew a lot of fruit and produce. Did it for personal and market use. Tried all kinds of things to stop the deer. Couldn't afford a deer fence cause I was tending about 3+ acres, and you're correct about the fence needing to be extremely tall. I used high test fishing line, minimum of 50lb test, 100lb is better, and strung it around my crops. I used the metal posts that you can drive in the ground. Placed them about 50 feet apart around my field and orchards. Strung the first strand of fishing line tight, about two feet from the ground, pole to pole, until I had enclosed the area I wanted to protect. I did two more strands , about two feet apart up the poles the same way. It doesn't keep the deer out by obstructing them like a normal fence does. It confuses them because they can't see it very well, but can feel it. Freaks them out and they leave. It worked great for me, for many years. It was the only solution I had success with.
I did that one year around a garden space. Only had a single strand about 30". Heavy deer area and never had one in that year. Not long term but it worked great.
@@wedrawstuff I had great success with it. Had it get torn down a few times, from where they must've got hung up in it. It even helped keep the wild turkeys out. They would eat the corn and pea sprouts. Cleaned me out worse than the crows would.
Sounds like a great plan for me to try. Deer are eating my new Maples and raspberry plants. I want to plant apples and peaches. Sounds like a less costly project! GOD Bless
I had an elderly neighbor who kept getting deer damage to his garden. His fence got taller and taller, to no avail. One night he hears something and rushes out to see what was going on. He spotted the deer, belly crawling under the fence and happily eating his veggies.
I've had to cut the wire around the neck of deer that got stuck trying to get through when I surprised them. Moose are not that frantic. The one moose I surprised after it got in through an open gate just waited until I opened another gate.
Look up hedge LAYING! Done since before the 1sth Roman empire in some parts of Europe. It roughly is planting a thorny hedge, cutting the trunks for 3/4 and laying/braiding them after a few year. Great for biodiversity, small mamals and birds thrive in those hedges. Cattle (and Roman cavalery)can't het through them
Great video Stefan! We live in the middle of a National Forest, so we have plenty of deer. Here is what I do: The problem is the solution! I use a carrot and the stick approach to deer management. I funnel the deer with fences right to where I do want them, so that I can shoot them (during hunting season). I also provide a salt lick and plant deer attractors at my hunting location. That’s the carrot. Here’s the stick. I surround my fruit trees with vertically planted logs from the forest. These eventually sprout mushrooms. The arm width logs act as a physical deterrent. I also surround the fruit trees with plants deer don’t like to eat, like daffodils. I also paint the trunks and logs with Sepp Holzer style “bone sauce.” Not too much. A little goes a long way! I also have dogs. I feed them only at my meIon patch, so they protect my garden. But I also have provided them with dens at strategic places around the perimeter of the farm. If I hear something, by command, I can send them out on “patrol” and they will patrol the perimeter, check out their dens then return to the house. (I walk the perimeter with them every morning, inspect their dens and I repeat my “Patrol” command often as we go). That way all I have to do is say “Patrol,” let them out and they will patrol the perimeter and run off any intruder they encounter. I also raise poultry so I get predators as well as deer. I have magnetically levitated scarecrows that rotate in the wind. They are taller than a human and each one has a raised stick in their hands. They also have a can attached to their arm with a marble in it that makes a random clicking clinking sound suggestive of human presence - not a normal forest sound. They also have long sparkling Christmas tinsel hair (from the dollar store). I place these scarecrows at strategic locations. I aim motion detector lights at the scarecrows (rather than at the wildlife), so that at random times during the night they suddenly light up while they are rotating. They scare the living crap out of the raccoons. 👻🦝 As to my fences, I have a double fence, with a blackberry thicket between them. A while back, I also planted a willow living fence with some thorny shrubs behind it. Anything thorny will work just as well too.
@@StefanSobkowiak I knew that would get a response. Here is how to make one. Start with a pvc pipe. Glue neodymium magnets in the inside bottom of the rounded end cap. Make sure that you know the polarity and that all the polarity is the same. Place a smaller pvc pipe inside the larger pvc pipe. Glue the neodymium magnets to the outside bottom of the rounded end cap such that they repel the magnets glued to the inside of the larger pvc pipe cap. Attach connectors and more pvc pipes to the inner pvc pipe to make the arms of the scarecrow. Make sure that the pipes are buried in the ground deep enough so the scarecrow will not blow over in the wind. Since there is no friction, the scarecrows rotate in the slightest breeze. I like to have the arms raised holding a club (an old broom handle, an old hoe, a baseball bat (I’ve used all of these). The long sparkly tinsel hair helps to make the scarecrow move in the wind. It catches the light (which is solar powered and mounted on a separate post). The hair whipping in the wind makes the scarecrow seem more “alive.” Now suppose you are an animal walking around my field at night looking for an easy meal. You hear this random clinking clanking sound. Suddenly, a giant scarecrow lights up and wheels around to face you, stick raised ready to strike. You run, but oh my gosh, there is another one over there! You and your buddies high tail it and get the heck out of there and vow never to come back to that creepy place ever again! Seriously, this is the most effective scarecrow ever.
@@tomcurran1538 LOL Good idea. Mine resemble farmers hoeing the field by day. Innocent, cheerful, even decorative. At least they are until the sun begins to set. . . That’s when they transform. They are terrifying at night and that's the time when we need their services. Mu ha ha! 😈 Either way, they are fun to watch.
We made good experience with pilling branches around the young fruit trees. Keeping the tree out of reach for deer and others and shadowing the soil underneath the trees.
Very timely, thanks. We're planting about eleven different kinds of fruit and native trees right now, and all but one are listed as being "deer favorites" lol. Most of our property is already ringed with barbed wire because the previous owner had a couple horses and beef, but after listening to a lot of farmers over the years, I'm convinced that the WIDE brushy living "fence" you describe is best overall to keep deer out. It's certainly cheaper than building 8' foot fences around seven acres ;) Planting other perrenials/self-seeding annuals that bambies n bunnies don't like so much around each tree also makes sense for us. Lots of "deer-repelling" and "rabbit-repelling" plants are things we already plant in beds anyway.
There are videos on planting hedge fences in Scotland and Ireland. Maybe look into hedge types that grow well in your zone deer can only jump a certain width and height at the same time
Hello. First of all I love your channel, thank you for all the free content and advices you help us with :) Regarding the deer, I used water+lime+salt+I believe it was sulphur or something similar my agronomer gave me = I used an organic combo. What I did was I painted the base of the young trees, lets say lower 50 cm, plus all of the tips of the branches on my young fruit trees that are around 100-250 cm high. The result? They barely touched any of my trees and I have around 100 young fruit trees. :)
@@StefanSobkowiak Those things are all water soluble, and they will all be gone after the first rain, leaching salt and sulphates into the soil. Definitely not something someone on a large scale wants to be doing. Seek more natural solutions.
@Canadian Permaculture Legacy A very small amount of salt and sulfates was used, it was mostly lime in the whole mixture while the other two were present in the mixture in traces just so that they manage to make the taste even more disgusting for the deers, and it succeeded. I do appreciate the advice nevertheless and I would not use big amounts of salt in no way. I use organic manure regularly plus some additional organic soil improvers. This mixture above was small in volume but it was still enough to protect over 100 trees (I have some old trees as well)
We also must not lose sight of the root cause of the problem of deer. Humans have done 2 things: 1) Removed all their food sources and habitat. 2) Removed all the habitat of their predators, and hunted them to near extinction. Lets always address the root cause of the problem. The individual owner may not be able to restore deer predators, however as humanity, our solution should be to restore biodiversity, not just deal with the symptoms of the ecological destruction we've caused. Great solutions Stefan. Myself I use a combination of Roses, black locust (cut to coppice), seabuckthorn, and the natural cedar at the edge of my system. The bushes planted very thick along the cedar wall. Deer can jump high or long, but not both. However, then I also plant late-season apples and Jerusalem Artichokes on the deer side of the "fence" so they have a reason not to push any further, because they have food on "their side", especially focussed on February and March (apples that hold that late!!), as this is when the majority of deer damage happens. We have to remember that all "pests" (all things humans call pests) are only trying to survive. They aren't being malicious, they are just trying to eat, the same as us. So in my opinion, all solutions should be focused on keeping that in mind. Deer don't want to wander into human habitats where they can get hit by cars and shot by hunters (another great solution by the way). They just want to eat.
Excellent point. I like to say, "the deer (or bears or insects or whatever) were here first." We're the ones butting in on their place. When I lived in a city, I had a lot of trouble with small critters like raccoons and possums tearing up the garden, and when one sort of insect found the plants there'd be a LOT of them. The system was out of balance; there wasn't much else to keep the "pests" in check. Now that I'm out in the boonies, where there's much more diversity and habitat, "pests" of all sorts and sizes definitely exist, but they are FAR less of a problem for us. Less than a quarter of our seven acres is gardens/orchard, house or yard. About 2/3 of the property is wooded, and we like it that way. We agree it's very important to leave space for all sorts of critters, even within the cultivated areas. A little bitty "frog pond" near the garden is a lovely thing, a couple bird feeders are nice too, and both the frogs and birds keep skeeters etc from becoming a big problem. I don't plant veg or fruit trees below the hickories and oaks up on the hill, because that's a fantastic spot for local deer and squirrels etc to eat in peace. I can steal a little of that nut harvest and still leave the majority of it for them. We're also putting in a rain garden in a "troublesome" spot that stays soggy and eventually drains into the creek, both to help prevent erosion and runoff issues and to provide habitat for various native critters. It's a stewardship thing.
Unfortuanately that isn't really true, I have lots of food on my land the deer can eat, tall grasses short grasses, soybeans corns, but they are attracted to fruit trees like moths to light. Even if you put out deer feed, they will still go after fruit trees. Its like a delicacy for deer.
Thanks Stefan , I’m on an escapement property in Wollongong NSW Australia. Lots of marauding feral deer herds here . Sadly effecting numbers of native animals competing for food as they do . Wish I’d seen your excellent comprehensive clip years ago . I’ve learnt a lot of what you’ve spoken about by trial and error … especially that deer crawl under at least as much as they jump over fences . We have Just about nailed it now …only one deer in this year, and that was when a tree came down and took out part of our fence . Anyway , this is the first time I have come across your channel and I’m now very keen to watch more of your presentations as I have not had great success with fruit tree growing yet so I’m so happy to have found your personable informative channel thank you . However I hope you won’t mind if I suggest that you add the words in the title along the lines of “And protect your trees from deer “ . Stefan there are many people out here who need this information and it will not pop up in Google searches for them unless they specifically put in the words fruit trees. This information is more widely applicable than just for people with orchards .Initially I was planting veggie and ornamental gardens and have only been earnestly planting fruit trees in the last few years . This information would have been so good for me T from the beginning and saved me time money and heartache . Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Kind regards Viviana .
One idea I've been toying with is simply establishing a living fence of thornless blackberries and similar along the road, where it's not really practical for me to make a wider hedgerow. I figure anything outside the "fence-line" would be free for the taking for deer or other passersby, and anything inside the "fence-line" would be an extra harvest for us. It's possible that it might satisfy the local birds' hunger for my other berry bushes... I hope.
@@lunawolf307 I have OODLES of the wild thorny blackberries already. Out in the woodlot I don't mind them at all, especially along the property line. They tend to keep both four- and- two-legged trespassers away like you said. But right in the pasture/orchard or near the garden... nope. They grow and spread way too fast in full sun, and it can very quickly become a real nightmare to manage them.
Yes, that's a good idea. Although the thornless blackberry is expensive to buy from a nursery, they pup readily and the prunings at the end of each season have a pretty good "take" rate, so that in 4 - 5 years, you will have a highly productive hedge row. I don't know about deer, but keep goats well away. Blackberry vines are icecream to them.
@@peteacher52 Yes, that's the plan with our small fruit plants in general. We bought 2 different thornless blackberries last year, we'll buy a couple more different ones this year, and take cuttings/keep pups from the ones we like best. It's a multi-year project for us. Same thing with various other berries and grapes. Thanks for the tip about goats. From what I've heard goats will get into everything, so they're not on our wish-list... ;)
That wouldn't work here, it is what the deer like to eat most, thornless and with thorns. That and roses. If you mix them with other plant that deer don't like and that are thorny then it is a different story of course.
I found this video at the right time. We have started our food forest project and have been thinking about different options for fencing... Great video. Thank you.
I have heard that deer can jump high OR wide, but not both in the same jump. The fedge sounds like the hedgerow systems widely used in England and Europe, which are renowned for their biodiversity.
History tidbit: The hedges in France were so thick and dense that they would stop American Tanks dead in WWII until they made a steel comb to cut the hedges at the roots.
Wasn't fun for the GIs back in the day, they hated the bocage something fierce. Lots of cover. But yea, great for biodiversity and utterly impervious (once old and established enough) to anything bigger than a fox.
What Steffan is calling a fedge is called a laid hedge and the process called hedge laying. It is a very old technique. You need to go back over it every 3 years and thin and weave in. There are several regional variations in the UK and special tool for the job. they are beautiful when maintained. There is also a thing that I have heard of as being a fedge that is actually a dead hedge. You put a row of stakes either side of Where are the dead hedge will be and fill the space in between with small branch cuttings and other long plant material. It can be filled with young willow cuttings for a pretty one. These will rot down over time, but the fedge can be maintained by piling more cuttings/lengthy garden waste on top at any time. A good way to make a wind break or to make an are into a herb area etc.
I planted a young tree last year and noticed the deer were munching on it. A neighbor, who also is a deer hunter, told me to take the stands of hair from my hairbrush and place them around the young branches and at the base of the tree. It worked.
I use 16' cattle panel and steel posts make circle around the tree the cattle panels will not bend down when the deer stand on it. I fence each individual tree it works! I wire the ends of the cattle panels so I can open it like a gate when I need to get in.
Using the same concept, but I cut the panels in half (two 8 foots sections) and then using four of the sections, make an eight foot "box" around each tree, and using cheap mini-caribiners to clip the sections together, it will stand on its own with no stakes, posts, etc. Although it is not very tall (for a deer fence), the space inside the enclosure doesn't seem big enough for a deer to want to jump in. No place to land! Also very easy to unclip, move, reconfigure, mow, mulch, make companion plantings, etc., basically makes it easy to access the tree, just like your system. As the trees get bigger, I am adding sections or linking the enclosures to other nearby trees. So far 100% protection. Cost is the only downside, as noted below.
@@StefanSobkowiak As I describe above, each young tree needs two 16 foot panels, which are now 25 usd each. So, yes, expensive and only practical for home scale applications. But no comparison to what the cost would be to build a bombproof permanent fence around the entire orchard area. Plus I like having the deer around. As noted in other comments, wildlife continues to be squeezed out so I'm happy to have a place for them. As long as they don't eat my fruit trees! And was it Mollison who said "everything gardens"? I can easily toss any drops from under the trees out of the enclosures and rest assured they will be gone in the morning, and there will be some fresh offerings left in their place.
@@billschulz2861 I use cattle panels for lots of things like arches and trellises, but I hadn't thought of using it to protect trees like that. I like your idea a lot. It's somewhat similar to the way I make raised beds - I just cut the panels in half lengthwise and bend them into a square or circle, then fill/line that with various organic material. Sort of hugel-style/lasagna gardening type stuff. Add just a few inches of compost/soil on top, and they're ready to grow whatever. Works great and lasts indefinitely. Eventually they'll be just big mounds of soil. "Proper" fencing is EXPENSIVE! When we moved to this new place we wanted to fence in the back yard/dog run... we ended up using wooden posts, cattle panels, and lined them with chicken wire (mainly so our smaller dog couldn't stick her goofy noggin in the open squares and possibly get stuck or hurt). Even though we put in a couple very sturdy farm-style gates, we still saved hundreds of dollars compared to chain-link fencing and other standard methods. If I did want to fence in an entire pasture or orchard, I would look long and hard at either steel t-posts or wooden posts, and cattle panels. Do all the math compared to what chain-link etc costs in your area... I think you'll be surprised. In our case we have the posts about 6' above the ground so if we wanted to we could run a wire around the top of them.
I have used the bend panels from the corrals. I like Bill's idea of making a square! You want to be sure you don't make the inside big enough for them to feel comfortable with jumping inside. The down side is panels are getting expensive!! I haven't priced them lately, but trees are expensive too.
I use 4' tall fencing with posts that are 3 feet taller than the fencing and run airplane cable across the top of the posts. It saves me a lot of money on fencing, and have never had a deer try to jump it. I don't worry about people, my security works for dog food.
Lemme explain something about deer. They have their eye on the sides of their heads. What that means is that unlike predators who have their eyes together in front. That gives Predators the advantage of having what is called depth of field. It means they can accurately judge distances, which comes in handy when hunting prey. deer have eyes on the sides of their heads so they can spot movement from almost 360 degrees. So What I'm getting at is two fences even 4 ft high with the space of say 4 feet in between will fools dear into thinking the fences are much higher. So when I say fencing what I'm talking about are electrified Equine Tape double or even triple strand fencing. When seen through a single eye will blend to appear as one single fence 8 feet high and just as wide.
Look closely at a pigeon and an owl... you see exactly the same, adequate 270 degrees or more field of view against a focused 60 degrees or less field...
@@timbushell8640 And they have the unique ability to turn their heads approximately 360* ! owls also have special offset hearing which lets them echo targeted prey species in total dark with silent wings. lot of Adaptations between species. And what does that have to do with deer 2d perception?
Great video, I have had luck with adding a visual barrier along the fence. If the deer can't see where their landing, they are also hesitant to try jumping over.
Great idea as always Stefan. If I may add, you can also run a wire every 6 inches in height and construct your fence from these wires, no actual fence is needed, unless you want to keep other animals out. You tie a white wide ribbons every five feet or so into these wires at different heights. White ribbon is a danger signal to deer. They will come close to investigate and they will poke their heads through. But once they feel the wire as they will not see it, they will hesitate and trust that white ribbon signal of warning them of danger. This way the deer will also think that your fence is going way higher as they can feel it but not see it and therefore they will not jump. Your property will be avoided by the deer.
My suburban back yard abuts a state/national park. When my original 3 foot fence stood, the deer had the run of my yard, so I had an 8 foot fence put up, and I’m successfully growing paw paws, persimmons, kiwis, blueberries, etc. Since having the fence installed in 2011, I’ve only had deer in my yard once, and only because I left the back gate open. Fences work!
Thickly plant thorny sea buckthorn (sea berry) on the fence's outside. 8-12 feet height x 8-12 feet deep thorny fence liner. Quick growing 8-6 inches/year. Berries, juice, and powder high in nutrients for humans and deer. Let them eat the outside barrier of buckthorn berries and leaves, protecting all things of the inside farm and orchard. Yellow and orange-red colored berries makes a brilliant fence barrier.
True for goats and pigs, too. The neighbors' goats and pigs roam at will periodically. Goats strip everything. Pigs eat roots. I already knew i wanted a fence. Thanks for the fence ideas.
Fedge = proper Irish hedgerow. It's worth looking up ... they keep out sheep and cattle, and get to 20 feet or more high. I have 100 acres in Maine and did precisely this - and everything about my farm is more productive because of it.
We just moved to Maine. We are trying to turn one acre of our property into a land of abundance. I would love to see what you did and know more about it.
Hi Patrick, I'm a little late to the conversation, so hopefully you'll see this by chance. I'm up in Maine too. I bought 13 acres a few years ago. It's about 30 minutes from Bangor, with river frontage. I'm wondering if you're in that area? (Or anyone else with similar direction and interest?) In looking to meet some people in the area who have the inside scoop already. I'm finally getting to the point where I don't have a much time for trial and error. So if I get advice from people in the area I'm more likely to plant the right species the first time, and things like that. I'm about to start working on building a passive geothermal, rammed earth and concrete, 90+% recycled materials, "camp" and workspace. While cleaning the forest and rebuilding it into a more productive permaculture forrest and small fields. ... also while working and trying to wrap up loose ends in southern Maine. Then hopefully transition and spend more time upta camp. 😅 It sounds like you have experience with the area and community. So I would guess, a better knowledge of species which are acclimated to the area. I've worked with the USDA AND FDA in the past. Part of my last job included testing, writing, and validating rooms, machines and equipment in a strict medical laboratory setting for the FDA (and others) approval. So I know how most of it works. I've also always had a garden, and a bit of a green thumb. Right now I'm setting an example by landscaping my little postage stamp yard to look ornamental while maximizing food production, instead of the stereotypical lawn with some juniper bushes and daffodils.
Thank you. That is a wise way to do it. I have to put mini fence, like a ring around each tree, to protect from deer. Anything outside of that mini fence gets eaten.
Yew makes an amazing deer fence. It grows fast and thick, and the deer get too occupied browsing on it to bother with anything that might be on the other side!
Great advise, I had major damage to my tree and blue berry bushes from deer. I was really confused about my Blue Berries because the damage wasn't as evident. They were just removing the new growth so I initial thought my plant were sick.
I have a tree farm with heavy deer density. 5' tree tubes and wire cages around individual trees works best for me. The tree tubes also make the trees grow much faster.
Tree tubes are good to use also to get tree up high enough when the trees are young whips . You have to use central leader system for pruning. The deer will definitely get your trees.
Here's a digging tip I discovered when putting in 22 bushes around the house,, then 47 fence post holes... instead of digging with the shovel, you can dig with a shop vac,, just vacuum a hole,, dump it into a wheel barrel, and repeat !!!.... It's so fast & easy and fun !!!!!!!!🥳🥳
I am a big fan of hedge rows and providing wildlife migration corridors. It really helps us hans share the limited space with life that was here before we moved in and changed it. There are plenty of strategies to keep deer damage limited. Sheep in the orchard is fine but they must absolutely be a short breed like Southdowns sometimes called minitures. They were bred specifically for orchards.Many homeowners can put fruiting bushes and trees into their yards easily.
Hedges were partially severed in a special way that allowed enough of the cambium & sapwood to continue to feed the tree even as it was lain over. Its ground-facing limbs might be trimmed off and then re-woven into the whole structure like wattle fencing, and the layering would be done so that it protected the cut portions of the tree trunks from water collecting & rotting.
Ruth goodman shows this method in one episode of the victorian farm or the edwardian farm, shows on absolute history. I forget which one but both are interesting.
You also cut off the heel of the cut at an angle to prevent water collection and rot. Not that a single trunk rotting matters much, hedge laying works on volume, some deadwood in the mix does not impede the product at all.
Why build two fences when you can just plant stuff next to one fence? Fences don't build soil or prevent erosion or all the other wonderful things perrenials do, they just cost money and sit there. I've seen those vids about little narrow chicken moats, and they really don't add up. It's just creating a narrow border of bare soil that's likely to erode away and/or become a muddy mess. The original chicken moat idea is much wider, like 3-4' or more, and the intention is that it slows down insects from crossing over into a cultivated garden. You let the chickens run around in it once in a while to "mow" it for you and eat any bugs that do wander across. Those little short, narrow chicken tunnels people are building now don't make any sense to me.
Lol, I love your little jokes... you remind me of my grandpa! 🥰 Great tips! So far the livestock dogs are keeping the deer away from many of our fruit trees, but they've still done their share of damage. Deer aside though, your video gave me a solution for some of the brush we will be cutting down in areas of the property this year....instead of the tedious work of dragging it all away and over to some hugelkultur beds, just stack it around the perimeter of the area to start a "fedge" for the sheep! My back thanks you in advance for the saved hauling! 😆
Nice orchard Sir and the editor or cameraman, been watching your videos for a while. I'm trying to grow a food forest and your videos are very helpful. Also, I love how the camera angle improved.
Good morning Stefan, I'm so glad I saw this video. I was planning on planting some apple and peach trees on my 5 acres. I'm going to have to wait until next year, so I can get an enclosure built first. My recent plantings of potted Red Maples and Raspberries plants, are being ate by deer. I'm enjoying your videos. GOD Bless You
I used some t posts and orange construction fencing close but kot too close to my young tree. I also took some branches off of the old Peach tree that doesnt produce and stuck them inside the fence but at an ablge to keep those branches as the first thing the deer are able to nibble. So far, so good.
Très intéressant! On est en plein dedans ici. On installe une forêt nourricière ce printemps et on a investi dans des clôtures à bétails. On va en mettre 2 une par dessus l'autre: 4pi+4pi=8 pieds. C'est plus économique qu'une clôture à gibier. On va également planter des lisières de plantes/arbres épineux (mûres, framboises, aubépines, argousiers, etc.) pour 'renforcer' l'effet dissuasif. Nous sommes situé dans un ravage de chevreuil, donc la pression sur les arbres est énorme;on espère que ça sera suffisant!
In theory, this would be fantastic. I am in the San Diego mountains and I think the wood clipping piles would be a fire hazard and a haven for rattlesnakes.
Where I grew up the back property line had two fences, both only 4 feet tall. They were roughly 6 feet apart, and the space was never mowed or cleaned up. It was full of briars and sweet shrub and wild persimmons. In twenty years of living there, we had ONE deer get on the property. One deer that got separated from her heard and freaked out trying to get back out until she managed to clear both fences. I'll add, don't ever try to shoo or guide a deer that is stuck in your yard. Just leave them be and leave a gate open. They can seriously injure you.
Thank you for sharing this precious Dear fence! Fedge that sounds like a Anastasia and the ringing Cedars idea of a living fence it’s a beautiful timeless classic idea it’s wonderful to see how you’ve carried it out on your beautiful property and thank you for sharing everything that you share with us
Fedge - Fence and hedge but also food - Berries, brambles, hawthorn, black locust, wild rose et.al provide spiky protection as well as a yield of food and fibre for both humans and wildlife.
Urinating in an area around the orchard or if you spray bobcat urine it may help. You can order it in a spray bottle. Deer are terrified by the smell of it.
To keep squirrels from eating my fruit, I put out cheap black oil sunflower seeds in feed pans on an umbrella covered table. The squirrels love the seed much better. I put the old/damaged fruit in a pan for the possums next to bowls of water at the fence line.
Ever tried Milogranite? There’s a study published from the University of Georgia and it’s shows that it stopped rabbits and deers alike. $12.87 a bag at Home Depot and it’s a natural fertilizer.
I have a couple of large hedges of Cape Town Honeysuckle growing in my yard. It takes full sun. One hedge is 12' to 15' wide x 70' long. I like trimming it to keep my pathways clear. It grows pretty aggressively, 2' to 3' per year. Flowers are orange, pretty and attracts bees. You might consider it along your fence line that is in full sun.
The presenter is in eastern Canada. Way too cold for South African plants. He might be able to get a similar effect using Lonicera sempervirens (North American "trumpet honeysuckle") though bees will ignore it (designed for hummingbirds, & certain butterflies like similar flowers, but our bees don't see red). (Deer do eat true honeysuckles, at least the invasive Japanese kind, but I suspect even the tamer natives grow a little faster than they get eaten.) Campsis radicans, which I believe is more closely related to the plant you mentioned, runs underground and therefore is a bit too aggressive (likely to pop up in the orchard). I am more in favor of mixed hedges (willows are easy and give rooting hormones; elderberry is somewhat easy and currently trendy in the USA for supposed health benefits though I don't find them especially palatable; Amorpha fruticosa or alders are nitrogen fixers that could be trimmed occasionally for fuel or woodchips). But vines can be part of habitat creation and in a few cases (Schisandra chinensis in partial shade areas? ) might provide something useful without being favored by deer (Schisandra has lemony foliage and ruminants tend to avoid aromatic plants). Vine milkweed (Ampelamus/Cynanchum laeve), which is good for pollinators and monarch butterflies though a definite "spreader" and Clematis (usually more restrained, and with bigger blooms,, but of no wildlife value except possibly one or two native species solely in south Texas and therefore irrelevant) are toxic to them (& us).
@@erikjohnson9223 You are absolutely correct about the type of honey suckle I have growing as runners underground. It is a good sanctuary hedge for smaller animals to navigate. People and I would think larger animals would not be able to plow through it easily. For reference I have my honey suckle growing in Central Florida East Coast.
Quite sensible contribution correlating with my observations: Deers, as we do, are lazy, and if they can avoid jumping they will first try to sneak through whatever, at their level. If they cannot see where jumping leads them, they won't jump except in fleeing mode. So a low tight fence along the ground, and the hedge above: Willows allow a pretty fast building of the visual screen. In the mean time, while the hedge grows, one or two ropes might confuse the deers on the possibility to jump over. A tight lower end of the fence would also limit access to low level kritters aka. badgers which are incompatible with some gardening ambitions...
You can also just make a hedgerow. In the Ozarks using osage orange an native mulberries. You use saplings bend them other and tye them together. Then when you get a year's groth you wave the new branches together. Next year you will have a fence that nothing will be able to penetrate.
One European brush fence idea is to use poles to pile the brush between so it's 2- 3' deep! Again, makes good refuge for birds and wildlife, and vines can grow over.
In the book Gaia's Garden, Toby Hemenway uses the term "Fedge" as a combo of food + hedge, meaning it's a hedge filled with wild foods on the outside to allow the deer to snack on - as they go down the line they are led away from your property. On the opposite side are your fruit trees, berries etc. that you would prefer not to share with the deer. Other options include a motion-detector activated sprinkler along the perimeter to scare deer away, and also from Perma Pastures Farm, Billy's Bone Sauce, an all-natural deer repellent which he has a video on and can be found for sale at their website.
I never had an issue with deer. What I did was I ran my boundary fence @5' and a second "scare" fence 3' in that was only 3-4'. Same idea. The scare fence was not installed to be useful as more than a visual thing. The depth messes the deer up and they won't risk it. Yep, it worked great for the deer. As for my Cashmere goats? NO COMMENT!
Deer don't like to feel trapped. If you put a fence around your orchard, a deer will jump it. BUT if you string a wire around the outside parameter of the fence, about 4 feet out or so, waist high, a deer would have to jump the wire, land, then jump the fence and they won't do it. Maybe it's because they feel trapped or maybe it's lack of speed, but it works.
My dad used fishing line at about 2' and at 4' high around the garden on the side that faced the woods. He'd hang old CD's all over as well. Looked silly but we never had deer problems that I can remember.
Merci Stefan pour cette autre excellente vidéo. Pour la phase 1 de mon verger permaculturel (4 trios), j'ai planté puis clôturé quelques mois plus tard. Erreur, les chevreuils sont venu grignoter, surtout les pruniers... Ce printemps je cloture avant de planter.
For a larger orchards this may work. But for homesteaders and gardeners, a square fence around each tree for 3 to 5 years is more manageable. You would then prune the tree upwards to grow the branches above the browse line. It works. The fence does need to be about 6 to 8 inches above the ground so you can weed-whack the grass around it so voles don't move in. And then wrap the trunk with 2' tall hardware cloth to prevent girdling from voles and rabbits. Dwarf trees will not work with this method. Semi-dwarf might be okay, but standards are the best.
Omg! Soon on a 26 acres land, we plan to plant 30+fruit tree and we have LOT of deer there. Thought to build a all cage to Protect tree the first 2-3 years, but i ll probably change my mind after seen this vidéo.
@@guytech7310 yeah, the cost of chain-link fencing adds up really fast. We found posts and cattle panels were a lot cheaper. But it's still a notable investment.
My deer in orlando are small..they ate allmy young trees😂😂 i bought metal fence roll in home depot and put cages around then...WORKED GREAT ❤❤❤❤ THE TREES ARE BIG NOW
We have more hogs in our area than deer, but they will both tear up a garden. Sinking the fence into the ground is a MUST. Being within the city limits, we are limited on the ways we can mitigate these trespassers (the hogs specifically) but trappers have been fairly effective and the sows and young ones taste great.
I have another good suggestion for deer problems that worked great for me. Before I had to quit because of health problems, I grew a lot of fruit and produce. Did it for personal and market use. Tried all kinds of things to stop the deer. Couldn't afford a deer fence cause I was tending about 3+ acres, and you're correct about the fence needing to be extremely tall.
I used high test fishing line, minimum of 50lb test, 100lb is better, and strung it around my crops. I used the metal posts that you can drive in the ground. Placed them about 50 feet apart around my field and orchards. Strung the first strand of fishing line tight, about two feet from the ground, pole to pole, until I had enclosed the area I wanted to protect. I did two more strands , about two feet apart up the poles the same way.
It doesn't keep the deer out by obstructing them like a normal fence does. It confuses them because they can't see it very well, but can feel it. Freaks them out and they leave.
It worked great for me, for many years. It was the only solution I had success with.
Great idea
I did that one year around a garden space. Only had a single strand about 30". Heavy deer area and never had one in that year. Not long term but it worked great.
@@wedrawstuff I had great success with it. Had it get torn down a few times, from where they must've got hung up in it. It even helped keep the wild turkeys out. They would eat the corn and pea sprouts. Cleaned me out worse than the crows would.
Like your strategy, I will try it to see if it works for me as well, Thank you
Sounds like a great plan for me to try.
Deer are eating my new Maples and raspberry plants. I want to plant apples and peaches. Sounds like a less costly project!
GOD Bless
I had an elderly neighbor who kept getting deer damage to his garden. His fence got taller and taller, to no avail. One night he hears something and rushes out to see what was going on. He spotted the deer, belly crawling under the fence and happily eating his veggies.
I'd slaughter the deer for food.
Yummy
I've had to cut the wire around the neck of deer that got stuck trying to get through when I surprised them. Moose are not that frantic. The one moose I surprised after it got in through an open gate just waited until I opened another gate.
Sounds like a free steak to me
Thanks for the laugh
Nature's own door dash
Look up hedge LAYING!
Done since before the 1sth Roman empire in some parts of Europe.
It roughly is planting a thorny hedge, cutting the trunks for 3/4 and laying/braiding them after a few year.
Great for biodiversity, small mamals and birds thrive in those hedges. Cattle (and Roman cavalery)can't het through them
Those hedge rows in Northern Europe actually made it hard for tanks to move around! That's saying something.
That's what I plan on doing when I get property
It is always best to prepare for Rome. Sure, it looks like they’re on the mat right now….but I think it is too soon to be sure.
Yes! I put a deer fence first we put a 7.5 ft. My trees would never survive without the fence. We added blackberries to the fence.
Don’t recommend brush piles if you’re in a dry climate. Living hedges would work tho.
OMG feeding a chickadee from your palm. What a fondest memory of the childhood! The moment she digs in to your palm with her little claws!
Stefan, great content! How about a fruit planting tutorial? Different techniques for heavy clay or sandy soil for various fruits.
Look up Planting by the Blue Print. I’ve tried it and it works!
Planting garlic around helps a lot. They haven't come back for my trees and garden since.
Roses love garlic, and have thorns
Great video Stefan! We live in the middle of a National Forest, so we have plenty of deer. Here is what I do: The problem is the solution! I use a carrot and the stick approach to deer management. I funnel the deer with fences right to where I do want them, so that I can shoot them (during hunting season). I also provide a salt lick and plant deer attractors at my hunting location. That’s the carrot. Here’s the stick. I surround my fruit trees with vertically planted logs from the forest. These eventually sprout mushrooms. The arm width logs act as a physical deterrent. I also surround the fruit trees with plants deer don’t like to eat, like daffodils. I also paint the trunks and logs with Sepp Holzer style “bone sauce.” Not too much. A little goes a long way! I also have dogs. I feed them only at my meIon patch, so they protect my garden. But I also have provided them with dens at strategic places around the perimeter of the farm. If I hear something, by command, I can send them out on “patrol” and they will patrol the perimeter, check out their dens then return to the house. (I walk the perimeter with them every morning, inspect their dens and I repeat my “Patrol” command often as we go). That way all I have to do is say “Patrol,” let them out and they will patrol the perimeter and run off any intruder they encounter. I also raise poultry so I get predators as well as deer. I have magnetically levitated scarecrows that rotate in the wind. They are taller than a human and each one has a raised stick in their hands. They also have a can attached to their arm with a marble in it that makes a random clicking clinking sound suggestive of human presence - not a normal forest sound. They also have long sparkling Christmas tinsel hair (from the dollar store). I place these scarecrows at strategic locations. I aim motion detector lights at the scarecrows (rather than at the wildlife), so that at random times during the night they suddenly light up while they are rotating. They scare the living crap out of the raccoons. 👻🦝 As to my fences, I have a double fence, with a blackberry thicket between them. A while back, I also planted a willow living fence with some thorny shrubs behind it. Anything thorny will work just as well too.
Wow mag lev scarecrows, that’s a first for me.
@@StefanSobkowiak I knew that would get a response. Here is how to make one. Start with a pvc pipe. Glue neodymium magnets in the inside bottom of the rounded end cap. Make sure that you know the polarity and that all the polarity is the same. Place a smaller pvc pipe inside the larger pvc pipe. Glue the neodymium magnets to the outside bottom of the rounded end cap such that they repel the magnets glued to the inside of the larger pvc pipe cap. Attach connectors and more pvc pipes to the inner pvc pipe to make the arms of the scarecrow. Make sure that the pipes are buried in the ground deep enough so the scarecrow will not blow over in the wind. Since there is no friction, the scarecrows rotate in the slightest breeze. I like to have the arms raised holding a club (an old broom handle, an old hoe, a baseball bat (I’ve used all of these). The long sparkly tinsel hair helps to make the scarecrow move in the wind. It catches the light (which is solar powered and mounted on a separate post). The hair whipping in the wind makes the scarecrow seem more “alive.” Now suppose you are an animal walking around my field at night looking for an easy meal. You hear this random clinking clanking sound. Suddenly, a giant scarecrow lights up and wheels around to face you, stick raised ready to strike. You run, but oh my gosh, there is another one over there! You and your buddies high tail it and get the heck out of there and vow never to come back to that creepy place ever again! Seriously, this is the most effective scarecrow ever.
Quite a fortress you have there! Thank you for detailed info .
I was thinking of those Halloween monster motion detectors.
@@tomcurran1538 LOL Good idea. Mine resemble farmers hoeing the field by day. Innocent, cheerful, even decorative. At least they are until the sun begins to set. . . That’s when they transform. They are terrifying at night and that's the time when we need their services. Mu ha ha! 😈 Either way, they are fun to watch.
We made good experience with pilling branches around the young fruit trees. Keeping the tree out of reach for deer and others and shadowing the soil underneath the trees.
You are such a joy & just stuffed with wisdom. Thanks!
Very timely, thanks. We're planting about eleven different kinds of fruit and native trees right now, and all but one are listed as being "deer favorites" lol.
Most of our property is already ringed with barbed wire because the previous owner had a couple horses and beef, but after listening to a lot of farmers over the years, I'm convinced that the WIDE brushy living "fence" you describe is best overall to keep deer out.
It's certainly cheaper than building 8' foot fences around seven acres ;)
Planting other perrenials/self-seeding annuals that bambies n bunnies don't like so much around each tree also makes sense for us. Lots of "deer-repelling" and "rabbit-repelling" plants are things we already plant in beds anyway.
There are videos on planting hedge fences in Scotland and Ireland. Maybe look into hedge types that grow well in your zone deer can only jump a certain width and height at the same time
Suggestions for self-seeding perennials that deer don’t like? TIA
Hello. First of all I love your channel, thank you for all the free content and advices you help us with :) Regarding the deer, I used water+lime+salt+I believe it was sulphur or something similar my agronomer gave me = I used an organic combo. What I did was I painted the base of the young trees, lets say lower 50 cm, plus all of the tips of the branches on my young fruit trees that are around 100-250 cm high. The result? They barely touched any of my trees and I have around 100 young fruit trees. :)
Wow great idea
@@StefanSobkowiak Those things are all water soluble, and they will all be gone after the first rain, leaching salt and sulphates into the soil. Definitely not something someone on a large scale wants to be doing. Seek more natural solutions.
@Canadian Permaculture Legacy
A very small amount of salt and sulfates was used, it was mostly lime in the whole mixture while the other two were present in the mixture in traces just so that they manage to make the taste even more disgusting for the deers, and it succeeded. I do appreciate the advice nevertheless and I would not use big amounts of salt in no way. I use organic manure regularly plus some additional organic soil improvers. This mixture above was small in volume but it was still enough to protect over 100 trees (I have some old trees as well)
We also must not lose sight of the root cause of the problem of deer. Humans have done 2 things: 1) Removed all their food sources and habitat. 2) Removed all the habitat of their predators, and hunted them to near extinction. Lets always address the root cause of the problem. The individual owner may not be able to restore deer predators, however as humanity, our solution should be to restore biodiversity, not just deal with the symptoms of the ecological destruction we've caused.
Great solutions Stefan. Myself I use a combination of Roses, black locust (cut to coppice), seabuckthorn, and the natural cedar at the edge of my system. The bushes planted very thick along the cedar wall. Deer can jump high or long, but not both. However, then I also plant late-season apples and Jerusalem Artichokes on the deer side of the "fence" so they have a reason not to push any further, because they have food on "their side", especially focussed on February and March (apples that hold that late!!), as this is when the majority of deer damage happens.
We have to remember that all "pests" (all things humans call pests) are only trying to survive. They aren't being malicious, they are just trying to eat, the same as us. So in my opinion, all solutions should be focused on keeping that in mind. Deer don't want to wander into human habitats where they can get hit by cars and shot by hunters (another great solution by the way). They just want to eat.
Excellent point. I like to say, "the deer (or bears or insects or whatever) were here first." We're the ones butting in on their place.
When I lived in a city, I had a lot of trouble with small critters like raccoons and possums tearing up the garden, and when one sort of insect found the plants there'd be a LOT of them. The system was out of balance; there wasn't much else to keep the "pests" in check.
Now that I'm out in the boonies, where there's much more diversity and habitat, "pests" of all sorts and sizes definitely exist, but they are FAR less of a problem for us.
Less than a quarter of our seven acres is gardens/orchard, house or yard. About 2/3 of the property is wooded, and we like it that way.
We agree it's very important to leave space for all sorts of critters, even within the cultivated areas. A little bitty "frog pond" near the garden is a lovely thing, a couple bird feeders are nice too, and both the frogs and birds keep skeeters etc from becoming a big problem.
I don't plant veg or fruit trees below the hickories and oaks up on the hill, because that's a fantastic spot for local deer and squirrels etc to eat in peace. I can steal a little of that nut harvest and still leave the majority of it for them.
We're also putting in a rain garden in a "troublesome" spot that stays soggy and eventually drains into the creek, both to help prevent erosion and runoff issues and to provide habitat for various native critters.
It's a stewardship thing.
Unfortuanately that isn't really true, I have lots of food on my land the deer can eat, tall grasses short grasses, soybeans corns, but they are attracted to fruit trees like moths to light. Even if you put out deer feed, they will still go after fruit trees. Its like a delicacy for deer.
Great attitude and strategy. You’ve done a great job on your channel as well, congrats.
@@guytech7310 of course they will, it's like dessert in an ocean of plain oatmeal. We have to work around that.
@@dogslobbergardens6606 dealing with the soggy areas will also help with the mosquitos.
Thanks Stefan , I’m on an escapement property in Wollongong NSW Australia. Lots of marauding feral deer herds here . Sadly effecting numbers of native animals competing for food as they do . Wish I’d seen your excellent comprehensive clip years ago . I’ve learnt a lot of what you’ve spoken about by trial and error … especially that deer crawl under at least as much as they jump over fences . We have Just about nailed it now …only one deer in this year, and that was when a tree came down and took out part of our fence . Anyway , this is the first time I have come across your channel and I’m now very keen to watch more of your presentations as I have not had great success with fruit tree growing yet so I’m so happy to have found your personable informative channel thank you . However I hope you won’t mind if I suggest that you add the words in the title along the lines of “And protect your trees from deer “ . Stefan there are many people out here who need this information and it will not pop up in Google searches for them unless they specifically put in the words fruit trees. This information is more widely applicable than just for people with orchards .Initially I was planting veggie and ornamental gardens and have only been earnestly planting fruit trees in the last few years . This information would have been so good for me T from the beginning and saved me time money and heartache . Thanks for sharing your knowledge. Kind regards Viviana .
protein to go with your fruit. not a bad problem to have.
One idea I've been toying with is simply establishing a living fence of thornless blackberries and similar along the road, where it's not really practical for me to make a wider hedgerow. I figure anything outside the "fence-line" would be free for the taking for deer or other passersby, and anything inside the "fence-line" would be an extra harvest for us. It's possible that it might satisfy the local birds' hunger for my other berry bushes... I hope.
Get the thorned kind for other areas as self defense
@@lunawolf307 I have OODLES of the wild thorny blackberries already. Out in the woodlot I don't mind them at all, especially along the property line. They tend to keep both four- and- two-legged trespassers away like you said.
But right in the pasture/orchard or near the garden... nope. They grow and spread way too fast in full sun, and it can very quickly become a real nightmare to manage them.
Yes, that's a good idea. Although the thornless blackberry is expensive to buy from a nursery, they pup readily and the prunings at the end of each season have a pretty good "take" rate, so that in 4 - 5 years, you will have a highly productive hedge row. I don't know about deer, but keep goats well away. Blackberry vines are icecream to them.
@@peteacher52 Yes, that's the plan with our small fruit plants in general. We bought 2 different thornless blackberries last year, we'll buy a couple more different ones this year, and take cuttings/keep pups from the ones we like best. It's a multi-year project for us. Same thing with various other berries and grapes.
Thanks for the tip about goats. From what I've heard goats will get into everything, so they're not on our wish-list... ;)
That wouldn't work here, it is what the deer like to eat most, thornless and with thorns. That and roses. If you mix them with other plant that deer don't like and that are thorny then it is a different story of course.
Had fruit trees for 54 years...and a rifle.
The problem is that these little batards come to eat my plants at night when I’m sleeping 😢
I found this video at the right time. We have started our food forest project and have been thinking about different options for fencing... Great video. Thank you.
We have photographic proof that deer can crawl under a fence only 12 inches off the ground. Yes, they really had to squeeze, crazy! (We fixed it)
Willow branches are easy to propagate into a living fence. Also very easy to weave.
I have heard that deer can jump high OR wide, but not both in the same jump. The fedge sounds like the hedgerow systems widely used in England and Europe, which are renowned for their biodiversity.
History tidbit: The hedges in France were so thick and dense that they would stop American Tanks dead in WWII until they made a steel comb to cut the hedges at the roots.
@@timoblake5689 great fun fact!!
Wasn't fun for the GIs back in the day, they hated the bocage something fierce. Lots of cover.
But yea, great for biodiversity and utterly impervious (once old and established enough) to anything bigger than a fox.
What Steffan is calling a fedge is called a laid hedge and the process called hedge laying. It is a very old technique. You need to go back over it every 3 years and thin and weave in. There are several regional variations in the UK and special tool for the job. they are beautiful when maintained. There is also a thing that I have heard of as being a fedge that is actually a dead hedge. You put a row of stakes either side of Where are the dead hedge will be and fill the space in between with small branch cuttings and other long plant material. It can be filled with young willow cuttings for a pretty one. These will rot down over time, but the fedge can be maintained by piling more cuttings/lengthy garden waste on top at any time. A good way to make a wind break or to make an are into a herb area etc.
2 6ft fences 4 feet apart you might have to let them out in the morning
Stephan, I'm always impressed by your practical but very wise solutions to your orchard. Keep up the absolutely amazing work. Stay awesome!
Thanks, will do!
I planted a young tree last year and noticed the deer were munching on it. A neighbor, who also is a deer hunter, told me to take the stands of hair from my hairbrush and place them around the young branches and at the base of the tree. It worked.
I use 16' cattle panel and steel posts make circle around the tree the cattle panels will not bend down when the deer stand on it. I fence each individual tree it works! I wire the ends of the cattle panels so I can open it like a gate when I need to get in.
Built like a tank. What does it cost you per tree?
Using the same concept, but I cut the panels in half (two 8 foots sections) and then using four of the sections, make an eight foot "box" around each tree, and using cheap mini-caribiners to clip the sections together, it will stand on its own with no stakes, posts, etc. Although it is not very tall (for a deer fence), the space inside the enclosure doesn't seem big enough for a deer to want to jump in. No place to land! Also very easy to unclip, move, reconfigure, mow, mulch, make companion plantings, etc., basically makes it easy to access the tree, just like your system. As the trees get bigger, I am adding sections or linking the enclosures to other nearby trees. So far 100% protection. Cost is the only downside, as noted below.
@@StefanSobkowiak As I describe above, each young tree needs two 16 foot panels, which are now 25 usd each. So, yes, expensive and only practical for home scale applications. But no comparison to what the cost would be to build a bombproof permanent fence around the entire orchard area. Plus I like having the deer around. As noted in other comments, wildlife continues to be squeezed out so I'm happy to have a place for them. As long as they don't eat my fruit trees! And was it Mollison who said "everything gardens"? I can easily toss any drops from under the trees out of the enclosures and rest assured they will be gone in the morning, and there will be some fresh offerings left in their place.
@@billschulz2861 I use cattle panels for lots of things like arches and trellises, but I hadn't thought of using it to protect trees like that. I like your idea a lot. It's somewhat similar to the way I make raised beds - I just cut the panels in half lengthwise and bend them into a square or circle, then fill/line that with various organic material. Sort of hugel-style/lasagna gardening type stuff. Add just a few inches of compost/soil on top, and they're ready to grow whatever. Works great and lasts indefinitely. Eventually they'll be just big mounds of soil.
"Proper" fencing is EXPENSIVE! When we moved to this new place we wanted to fence in the back yard/dog run... we ended up using wooden posts, cattle panels, and lined them with chicken wire (mainly so our smaller dog couldn't stick her goofy noggin in the open squares and possibly get stuck or hurt). Even though we put in a couple very sturdy farm-style gates, we still saved hundreds of dollars compared to chain-link fencing and other standard methods.
If I did want to fence in an entire pasture or orchard, I would look long and hard at either steel t-posts or wooden posts, and cattle panels. Do all the math compared to what chain-link etc costs in your area... I think you'll be surprised. In our case we have the posts about 6' above the ground so if we wanted to we could run a wire around the top of them.
I have used the bend panels from the corrals. I like Bill's idea of making a square! You want to be sure you don't make the inside big enough for them to feel comfortable with jumping inside. The down side is panels are getting expensive!! I haven't priced them lately, but trees are expensive too.
I use 4' tall fencing with posts that are 3 feet taller than the fencing and run airplane cable across the top of the posts. It saves me a lot of money on fencing, and have never had a deer try to jump it. I don't worry about people, my security works for dog food.
Lemme explain something about deer. They have their eye on the sides of their heads. What that means is that unlike predators who have their eyes together in front. That gives Predators the advantage of having what is called depth of field. It means they can accurately judge distances, which comes in handy when hunting prey. deer have eyes on the sides of their heads so they can spot movement from almost 360 degrees. So What I'm getting at is two fences even 4 ft high with the space of say 4 feet in between will fools dear into thinking the fences are much higher. So when I say fencing what I'm talking about are electrified Equine Tape double or even triple strand fencing. When seen through a single eye will blend to appear as one single fence 8 feet high and just as wide.
Look closely at a pigeon and an owl... you see exactly the same, adequate 270 degrees or more field of view against a focused 60 degrees or less field...
@@timbushell8640 And they have the unique ability to turn their heads approximately 360* ! owls also have special offset hearing which lets them echo targeted prey species in total dark with silent wings. lot of Adaptations between species. And what does that have to do with deer 2d perception?
Great video, I have had luck with adding a visual barrier along the fence.
If the deer can't see where their landing, they are also hesitant to try jumping over.
Great idea as always Stefan. If I may add, you can also run a wire every 6 inches in height and construct your fence from these wires, no actual fence is needed, unless you want to keep other animals out. You tie a white wide ribbons every five feet or so into these wires at different heights. White ribbon is a danger signal to deer. They will come close to investigate and they will poke their heads through. But once they feel the wire as they will not see it, they will hesitate and trust that white ribbon signal of warning them of danger. This way the deer will also think that your fence is going way higher as they can feel it but not see it and therefore they will not jump. Your property will be avoided by the deer.
Great idea
My suburban back yard abuts a state/national park. When my original 3 foot fence stood, the deer had the run of my yard, so I had an 8 foot fence put up, and I’m successfully growing paw paws, persimmons, kiwis, blueberries, etc. Since having the fence installed in 2011, I’ve only had deer in my yard once, and only because I left the back gate open. Fences work!
We did this for almost a mile in Arkansas on our farm.
Thickly plant thorny sea buckthorn (sea berry) on the fence's outside. 8-12 feet height x 8-12 feet deep thorny fence liner. Quick growing 8-6 inches/year. Berries, juice, and powder high in nutrients for humans and deer. Let them eat the outside barrier of buckthorn berries and leaves, protecting all things of the inside farm and orchard. Yellow and orange-red colored berries makes a brilliant fence barrier.
True for goats and pigs, too. The neighbors' goats and pigs roam at will periodically. Goats strip everything. Pigs eat roots. I already knew i wanted a fence. Thanks for the fence ideas.
Fedge = proper Irish hedgerow. It's worth looking up ... they keep out sheep and cattle, and get to 20 feet or more high. I have 100 acres in Maine and did precisely this - and everything about my farm is more productive because of it.
WOW Patrick I would love to see how it worked out it Maine. Take your camera out for a walk and show your Fedge.
We just moved to Maine. We are trying to turn one acre of our property into a land of abundance. I would love to see what you did and know more about it.
Hi Patrick, I'm a little late to the conversation, so hopefully you'll see this by chance. I'm up in Maine too. I bought 13 acres a few years ago. It's about 30 minutes from Bangor, with river frontage. I'm wondering if you're in that area? (Or anyone else with similar direction and interest?) In looking to meet some people in the area who have the inside scoop already. I'm finally getting to the point where I don't have a much time for trial and error. So if I get advice from people in the area I'm more likely to plant the right species the first time, and things like that. I'm about to start working on building a passive geothermal, rammed earth and concrete, 90+% recycled materials, "camp" and workspace. While cleaning the forest and rebuilding it into a more productive permaculture forrest and small fields. ... also while working and trying to wrap up loose ends in southern Maine. Then hopefully transition and spend more time upta camp. 😅 It sounds like you have experience with the area and community. So I would guess, a better knowledge of species which are acclimated to the area. I've worked with the USDA AND FDA in the past. Part of my last job included testing, writing, and validating rooms, machines and equipment in a strict medical laboratory setting for the FDA (and others) approval. So I know how most of it works. I've also always had a garden, and a bit of a green thumb. Right now I'm setting an example by landscaping my little postage stamp yard to look ornamental while maximizing food production, instead of the stereotypical lawn with some juniper bushes and daffodils.
Blackberry or raspberry thickets can be 8' high and very wide. It will build itself too
Thank you. That is a wise way to do it. I have to put mini fence, like a ring around each tree, to protect from deer. Anything outside of that mini fence gets eaten.
Could I ask, what do you plant around each tree, to protect from the deer?
Yew makes an amazing deer fence. It grows fast and thick, and the deer get too occupied browsing on it to bother with anything that might be on the other side!
Fedge, I like that. It’s also a word I say when the deer find a way in
Great advise, I had major damage to my tree and blue berry bushes from deer. I was really confused about my Blue Berries because the damage wasn't as evident. They were just removing the new growth so I initial thought my plant were sick.
I have a tree farm with heavy deer density. 5' tree tubes and wire cages around individual trees works best for me. The tree tubes also make the trees grow much faster.
Glad to see you Stephan , very informative video ,always fun and enjoyable to watch your videos .
Me too
Tree tubes are good to use also to get tree up high enough when the trees are young whips . You have to use central leader system for pruning. The deer will definitely get your trees.
Great stuff! Planning ahead is key. ✌ 🌳
Here's a digging tip I discovered when putting in 22 bushes around the house,, then 47 fence post holes... instead of digging with the shovel, you can dig with a shop vac,, just vacuum a hole,, dump it into a wheel barrel, and repeat !!!.... It's so fast & easy and fun !!!!!!!!🥳🥳
What???? That's hilarious.
I am a big fan of hedge rows and providing wildlife migration corridors. It really helps us hans share the limited space with life that was here before we moved in and changed it. There are plenty of strategies to keep deer damage limited. Sheep in the orchard is fine but they must absolutely be a short breed like Southdowns sometimes called minitures. They were bred specifically for orchards.Many homeowners can put fruiting bushes and trees into their yards easily.
I heard planting a bunch of onions helps. Also if you do build a fence you can grow maypop, kiwi vine and or grape 🍇
Hedges were partially severed in a special way that allowed enough of the cambium & sapwood to continue to feed the tree even as it was lain over. Its ground-facing limbs might be trimmed off and then re-woven into the whole structure like wattle fencing, and the layering would be done so that it protected the cut portions of the tree trunks from water collecting & rotting.
Ruth goodman shows this method in one episode of the victorian farm or the edwardian farm, shows on absolute history. I forget which one but both are interesting.
You also cut off the heel of the cut at an angle to prevent water collection and rot. Not that a single trunk rotting matters much, hedge laying works on volume, some deadwood in the mix does not impede the product at all.
There are great vids on this technique including examples of fine old hedges in England
@@downbntout Came here to say this; hedge laying is still taught in quite some places of the UK.
Understand,, deer won't jump a double fence works great... Traditional homestead in ?? Mo.. use their mote as a chicken run....
Why build two fences when you can just plant stuff next to one fence? Fences don't build soil or prevent erosion or all the other wonderful things perrenials do, they just cost money and sit there.
I've seen those vids about little narrow chicken moats, and they really don't add up. It's just creating a narrow border of bare soil that's likely to erode away and/or become a muddy mess.
The original chicken moat idea is much wider, like 3-4' or more, and the intention is that it slows down insects from crossing over into a cultivated garden. You let the chickens run around in it once in a while to "mow" it for you and eat any bugs that do wander across. Those little short, narrow chicken tunnels people are building now don't make any sense to me.
Lol, I love your little jokes... you remind me of my grandpa! 🥰 Great tips! So far the livestock dogs are keeping the deer away from many of our fruit trees, but they've still done their share of damage. Deer aside though, your video gave me a solution for some of the brush we will be cutting down in areas of the property this year....instead of the tedious work of dragging it all away and over to some hugelkultur beds, just stack it around the perimeter of the area to start a "fedge" for the sheep! My back thanks you in advance for the saved hauling! 😆
Nice orchard Sir and the editor or cameraman, been watching your videos for a while. I'm trying to grow a food forest and your videos are very helpful. Also, I love how the camera angle improved.
There is also the option of planting an exible hedge/fedge, bramble, tree fence.
Osage Orange hedge. Grows fast a good animal deterrent. Keep out people as well 🤣
Oh love to hear your voice again, so unique and such good information to listen to.
I found this video 2 days after planting my paw paw trees.
Fortunately, I also put cages around them for the sun, which will also keep out deer. Whew!
I use cages made from concrete wire mesh. They are 4' high and 2' diameter. Gives the tree a chance grow and I cut the lower branches off.
5:40, silverthorn, wax myrtle, etc. Nitrogen fixers as a hedge to have it up fast.
Excellent video- this is valuable wisdom I’ll be glad to share with others. It comes to me before the homestead so it’s all in great timing. Thank you
Very good info. I had never thought of depth/brush piles/trees.
Very informative! Thank you!
Good morning Stefan, I'm so glad I saw this video. I was planning on planting some apple and peach trees on my 5 acres.
I'm going to have to wait until next year, so I can get an enclosure built first.
My recent plantings of potted Red Maples and Raspberries plants, are being ate by deer.
I'm enjoying your videos.
GOD Bless You
Blessings received, thanks, blessings sent to you.
I used some t posts and orange construction fencing close but kot too close to my young tree. I also took some branches off of the old Peach tree that doesnt produce and stuck them inside the fence but at an ablge to keep those branches as the first thing the deer are able to nibble. So far, so good.
Très intéressant! On est en plein dedans ici. On installe une forêt nourricière ce printemps et on a investi dans des clôtures à bétails. On va en mettre 2 une par dessus l'autre: 4pi+4pi=8 pieds. C'est plus économique qu'une clôture à gibier. On va également planter des lisières de plantes/arbres épineux (mûres, framboises, aubépines, argousiers, etc.) pour 'renforcer' l'effet dissuasif. Nous sommes situé dans un ravage de chevreuil, donc la pression sur les arbres est énorme;on espère que ça sera suffisant!
Wow tu ne peux pas avoir plus de pression que ça. L’odeur de pommes est très attrayante pour eux. Laisse savoir comment ça fonctionne.
In theory, this would be fantastic. I am in the San Diego mountains and I think the wood clipping piles would be a fire hazard and a haven for rattlesnakes.
Rattlesnake? Perfect so you won't have problems with mice and rabbit!
Generally if a deer can't see whats on the otherside of the fence they won't jump it. Hunters sometimes control movement with snow fence.
Yeah the trees along the fence line thing just makes me cringe so hard from a maintenance perspective 😮
Gosh, I just want to follow you around and soak up your knowledge and listen to your happy voice. 😊
You can in the videos, lots of binge watching available.
In deer country.. I put up 6foot fencing around each tree
Good to know! Hopefully buying land soon!
Where I grew up the back property line had two fences, both only 4 feet tall. They were roughly 6 feet apart, and the space was never mowed or cleaned up. It was full of briars and sweet shrub and wild persimmons. In twenty years of living there, we had ONE deer get on the property. One deer that got separated from her heard and freaked out trying to get back out until she managed to clear both fences. I'll add, don't ever try to shoo or guide a deer that is stuck in your yard. Just leave them be and leave a gate open. They can seriously injure you.
Or you can put the deer in your freezer. Delicious
We planted a hedge of Robin Hood roses and then a wide brush/stone pile.
Thank you for sharing this precious Dear fence! Fedge that sounds like a Anastasia and the ringing Cedars idea of a living fence it’s a beautiful timeless classic idea it’s wonderful to see how you’ve carried it out on your beautiful property and thank you for sharing everything that you share with us
Fedge - Fence and hedge but also food - Berries, brambles, hawthorn, black locust, wild rose et.al provide spiky protection as well as a yield of food and fibre for both humans and wildlife.
Urinating in an area around the orchard or if you spray bobcat urine it may help. You can order it in a spray bottle. Deer are terrified by the smell of it.
1st thought on deer--bow hunting (silent, doesn't draw attention) and venison is delicious. WAY too many of 'em in my parts.
I’m thinking of trying a fruit salad tree in a small back yard next spring. Thanks for the advice 🙏
I think acacia trees and Carissa carandos are good for boundary hedge.
To keep squirrels from eating my fruit, I put out cheap black oil sunflower seeds in feed pans on an umbrella covered table. The squirrels love the seed much better.
I put the old/damaged fruit in a pan for the possums next to bowls of water at the fence line.
Ever tried Milogranite?
There’s a study published from the University of Georgia and it’s shows that it stopped rabbits and deers alike.
$12.87 a bag at Home Depot and it’s a natural fertilizer.
Never tried.
Used to get bags of hair from a salon. Deer seemed to avoid those trees. Me too.@@StefanSobkowiak
I have a couple of large hedges of Cape Town Honeysuckle growing in my yard. It takes full sun. One hedge is 12' to 15' wide x 70' long. I like trimming it to keep my pathways clear. It grows pretty aggressively, 2' to 3' per year. Flowers are orange, pretty and attracts bees. You might consider it along your fence line that is in full sun.
The presenter is in eastern Canada. Way too cold for South African plants. He might be able to get a similar effect using Lonicera sempervirens (North American "trumpet honeysuckle") though bees will ignore it (designed for hummingbirds, & certain butterflies like similar flowers, but our bees don't see red). (Deer do eat true honeysuckles, at least the invasive Japanese kind, but I suspect even the tamer natives grow a little faster than they get eaten.) Campsis radicans, which I believe is more closely related to the plant you mentioned, runs underground and therefore is a bit too aggressive (likely to pop up in the orchard). I am more in favor of mixed hedges (willows are easy and give rooting hormones; elderberry is somewhat easy and currently trendy in the USA for supposed health benefits though I don't find them especially palatable; Amorpha fruticosa or alders are nitrogen fixers that could be trimmed occasionally for fuel or woodchips). But vines can be part of habitat creation and in a few cases (Schisandra chinensis in partial shade areas? ) might provide something useful without being favored by deer (Schisandra has lemony foliage and ruminants tend to avoid aromatic plants). Vine milkweed (Ampelamus/Cynanchum laeve), which is good for pollinators and monarch butterflies though a definite "spreader" and Clematis (usually more restrained, and with bigger blooms,, but of no wildlife value except possibly one or two native species solely in south Texas and therefore irrelevant) are toxic to them (& us).
@@erikjohnson9223 You are absolutely correct about the type of honey suckle I have growing as runners underground. It is a good sanctuary hedge for smaller animals to navigate. People and I would think larger animals would not be able to plow through it easily.
For reference I have my honey suckle growing in Central Florida East Coast.
I love your enthusiasm!
Quite sensible contribution correlating with my observations: Deers, as we do, are lazy, and if they can avoid jumping they will first try to sneak through whatever, at their level. If they cannot see where jumping leads them, they won't jump except in fleeing mode.
So a low tight fence along the ground, and the hedge above: Willows allow a pretty fast building of the visual screen.
In the mean time, while the hedge grows, one or two ropes might confuse the deers on the possibility to jump over.
A tight lower end of the fence would also limit access to low level kritters aka. badgers which are incompatible with some gardening ambitions...
That jacket is awesome brother!
You can also just make a hedgerow.
In the Ozarks using osage orange an native mulberries.
You use saplings bend them other and tye them together. Then when you get a year's groth you wave the new branches together.
Next year you will have a fence that nothing will be able to penetrate.
We planted a 7' fence from Dubois. The price has gone up 25% over the last 2 years, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
One European brush fence idea is to use poles to pile the brush between so it's 2- 3' deep! Again, makes good refuge for birds and wildlife, and vines can grow over.
I like that
In the book Gaia's Garden, Toby Hemenway uses the term "Fedge" as a combo of food + hedge, meaning it's a hedge filled with wild foods on the outside to allow the deer to snack on - as they go down the line they are led away from your property. On the opposite side are your fruit trees, berries etc. that you would prefer not to share with the deer.
Other options include a motion-detector activated sprinkler along the perimeter to scare deer away, and also from Perma Pastures Farm, Billy's Bone Sauce, an all-natural deer repellent which he has a video on and can be found for sale at their website.
All good alternatives.
So glad to be on PEI no deer, no moose, no large predators. Good info still.
Oh wow we need to bring a few truckloads to the island.
@@StefanSobkowiak loll, thanks but hard pass. Don't have the habitat for them anymore either. We will still to bunnies, voles, hares, and such!
This is hedge laying, very effective to make a border.
I never had an issue with deer. What I did was I ran my boundary fence @5' and a second "scare" fence 3' in that was only 3-4'. Same idea. The scare fence was not installed to be useful as more than a visual thing. The depth messes the deer up and they won't risk it.
Yep, it worked great for the deer.
As for my Cashmere goats? NO COMMENT!
Deer don't like to feel trapped. If you put a fence around your orchard, a deer will jump it. BUT if you string a wire around the outside parameter of the fence, about 4 feet out or so, waist high, a deer would have to jump the wire, land, then jump the fence and they won't do it. Maybe it's because they feel trapped or maybe it's lack of speed, but it works.
My dad used fishing line at about 2' and at 4' high around the garden on the side that faced the woods. He'd hang old CD's all over as well. Looked silly but we never had deer problems that I can remember.
hedgerow. in your case you might use the term Bocage.
Merci Stefan pour cette autre excellente vidéo. Pour la phase 1 de mon verger permaculturel (4 trios), j'ai planté puis clôturé quelques mois plus tard. Erreur, les chevreuils sont venu grignoter, surtout les pruniers... Ce printemps je cloture avant de planter.
Bravo pour un beau départ. Prends beaucoup de photos et vidéos, ça restera pas petit longtemps.
Thanks ❤ for your message
For a larger orchards this may work. But for homesteaders and gardeners, a square fence around each tree for 3 to 5 years is more manageable. You would then prune the tree upwards to grow the branches above the browse line. It works. The fence does need to be about 6 to 8 inches above the ground so you can weed-whack the grass around it so voles don't move in. And then wrap the trunk with 2' tall hardware cloth to prevent girdling from voles and rabbits. Dwarf trees will not work with this method. Semi-dwarf might be okay, but standards are the best.
Omg! Soon on a 26 acres land, we plan to plant 30+fruit tree and we have LOT of deer there. Thought to build a all cage to Protect tree the first 2-3 years, but i ll probably change my mind after seen this vidéo.
Check this out before buying a fence or cage. th-cam.com/video/-JJukGBYHz8/w-d-xo.html
You may still want a simple chicken-wire cage to keep rabbits away from them while they're young. But it doesn't have to be as tall, of course.
Big issue is going to be the cost of fencing materials. I recommending with at least a 7 foot fence.
@@guytech7310 yeah, the cost of chain-link fencing adds up really fast. We found posts and cattle panels were a lot cheaper. But it's still a notable investment.
My deer in orlando are small..they ate allmy young trees😂😂 i bought metal fence roll in home depot and put cages around then...WORKED GREAT ❤❤❤❤ THE TREES ARE BIG NOW
Pretty cheap and easy ❤❤❤❤
"Living Traditions Homestead" put up two fences with a space between they use for ducks and chickens. The deer won't try jumping over both fences.
We were surprised to find our decorative rock creek just inside a 4’ fence deters deer.
Thanks for this video.
So nice of you
Get a Jack Russel. They keep everything out.
We have more hogs in our area than deer, but they will both tear up a garden. Sinking the fence into the ground is a MUST. Being within the city limits, we are limited on the ways we can mitigate these trespassers (the hogs specifically) but trappers have been fairly effective and the sows and young ones taste great.
Yes make use of them. Hogs are smart and will quickly learn to respect an electrified fence. You only need one strand at 18 inches. Try it.
It's urgent work to safe orchard nice sir.