Hi all, We planted some Northern Spy apple trees last spring on some land my wife and I have in zone 5A/4B. They looked great last fall but this weekend when we took a walk around the property we discovered that deer had browsed on them. The branches were chewed and broken, the main trunk rubbed raw and the trees (three) were dead. Question, is there a way to keep the deer from eating our apple trees? (spray/product/netting???) Thanks.
I recently found a recipe for a non-toxic deer repellent, after it or they devastated my roses and young trees...so I tried it for the first time a month ago, and the deer have not been back...here's how it goes: Mix 1 Tbsp of baking POWDER into 1 litre of water, add one egg yolk, and mix well, put into spray bottle and spray all plants and flowers, repeat this every 2-3 weeks, regardless of rain...(or when you think of the deer eating your plants) Not sure how or why this works but it does! Good Luck!
Here is something that will be worth a try. It has been working for me in my apple orchard. Take about a dozen eggs and put them into a blender. Add about 2 quarts water and blend. Spray on and around trees. The deer don't like the smell of raw eggs. Another thing that works real well and is so simple it almost scares you. Take a white plastic shopping bag and tie it onto a branch of the tree you need to protect. Put a raw egg into the bag and smash it. You will need to add another egg several times throughout the season. Good Luck!
I've been using the recipe that Garden_4_Fun provided for the last 3 years and so far it's worked great! I gave the recipe to my mom, who has not harvested beets from her garden in over 15 years because the deer get them first. She used the spray last year and had beets to harvest!!
There is a nice book available on weeds. Weeds, Control Without Poison by; Charles Walters. In Weeds, Control Without Poison Walters explains what sixty years of deadly chemicals have done to our soils and our bodies, demonstrating once and for all that the stuff simply doesn't work in any long-term, common-sense agricultural system. A must have for any organic grower.
NO. Deer will eat anything, especially nursery stock. There's no permanent solution, but Liquid Fence works with continual application. Scarecrows spray water on them, but, of course, that's only a summer solution since water lines will freeze in winter. Nylon netting hung properly will work, depending on how it's installed. Good luck. Tex
We just moved back to Beaverton from the Medford area south. There were so many deer there, and they loved fruit trees. I was pruning in a big yard nearby at Central Point on Old Military Lane uphill from Old Stage Road, at a home with a big lot. Room for burning pile in the lower acre. There was a "pack" of deer on the lower acre where I was stacking limbs, including pear and apple tree limbs with some fruit. Whenever I dragged a pile of madrone, nandina or maple limbs to the pile, the deer walked about 90 feet away and returned when I went back uphill. But whenever it was pear or apple tree limbs, they barely walked 20 feet from the pile.
