Planting a Vegetable Garden

[jdemaris]

I put in electric fencing powered by a small solar panel and have had great luck keeping deer out. When my garden was smaller I had galvanized welded wire - 6'- and never had a problem with .

You must have some wimpy deer in your part of New York . . . or they don't want to get into your garden very badly.

I've got electric fence all over my fields with the most powerful fencer on the market (New Zealand weed burner). Deere crash through it all the time and are constantly breaking it - thus letting my goats out.

Deere never bother our crops much. They nibble on corn but it doesn't amount to much. Our big problem is coons trashing the corn, turkeys pulling up young corn plants when it's first coming out of the ground, and woodchucks destroying everything in our kitchen garden.

 

[kenny chaos]

I put in electric fencing powered by a small solar panel and have had great luck keeping deer out. When my garden was smaller I had galvanized welded wire - 6'- and never had a problem with .

You must have some wimpy deer in your part of New York . . . or they don't want to get into your garden very badly.

I've got electric fence all over my fields with the most powerful fencer on the market (New Zealand weed burner). Deere crash through it all the time and are constantly breaking it - thus letting my goats out.
.

Use high tensile. The charger doesn't mean anything to deer.
I've watched draft horses bounce off of mine.

 

[jdemaris]

Use high tensile. The charger doesn't mean anything to deer.
I've watched draft horses bounce off of mine.

I've got high tensile. Horses tend to be very cautious with electric fence and seem to always know when it's not working. Goats and cattle the same - except when goats are in their rut during mating season. Then, nothing seems to matter to them. We've got two Percheron draught horses as well as an Arabian stallion. They never touch the fence unless they know its off.

Deere are quite different, at least our white-tails are here. I suspect one reason is that most are young and don't live to be wise senior citizens - unlike my 40 year old Arabian.

 

[kenny chaos]

Use high tensile. The charger doesn't mean anything to deer.
I've watched draft horses bounce off of mine.

I've got high tensile. Horses tend to be very cautious with electric fence and seem to always know when it's not working. Goats and cattle the same - except when goats are in their rut during mating season. Then, nothing seems to matter to them. We've got two Percheron draught horses as well as an Arabian stallion. They never touch the fence unless they know its off.

Deere are quite different, at least our white-tails are here. I suspect one reason is that most are young and don't live to be wise senior citizens - unlike my 40 year old Arabian.

Something not quite right if deer can go through high tensile. Do you use the in-line springs?

 

[jdemaris]

Use high tensile. The charger doesn't mean anything to deer.
I've watched draft horses bounce off of mine.

I've got high tensile. Horses tend to be very cautious with electric fence and seem to always know when it's not working. Goats and cattle the same - except when goats are in their rut during mating season. Then, nothing seems to matter to them. We've got two Percheron draught horses as well as an Arabian stallion. They never touch the fence unless they know its off.

Deere are quite different, at least our white-tails are here. I suspect one reason is that most are young and don't live to be wise senior citizens - unlike my 40 year old Arabian.

Something not quite right if deer can go through high tensile. Do you use the in-line springs?

Yes, but the fence doesn't get broken too often anymore. I've got 20 acres fenced which took years, off and on, to get done.. All it takes is one good break somewhere if it gets shorted. I used to have five-wire with alternating ground, hot, ground, etc. and that was a lot more trouble.

We found a large buck one year dead at the fence. Looked like he was running full speed and crashed right into it - maybe in a rut?

As it is now, goats arent' big enough to hurt it, although they'll totally disregard it if they smell a female on the other side. Horses don't go near it. Deer though still make high speed crashes into it, now and then. We have more trouble with trees landing on it than anything else - as some of the fence goes through woods.

 

[Eric Johnson]

A vet told me to string one strand of electric wire and hang a little metal container full of peanut butter from it. That's my plan.

I've also heard that deer won't walk on wire fencing (like chicken wire) laying on the ground. That might complicate mowing, but you could probably build it into a frame that could be retracted or moved. I don't know. I really despise deer in the summer. If I didn't live in the village, I'd blast them with birdshot.

 

[dvellone]

I put in electric fencing powered by a small solar panel and have had great luck keeping deer out. When my garden was smaller I had galvanized welded wire - 6'- and never had a problem with .

You must have some wimpy deer in your part of New York . . . or they don't want to get into your garden very badly.

I've got electric fence all over my fields with the most powerful fencer on the market (New Zealand weed burner). Deere crash through it all the time and are constantly breaking it - thus letting my goats out.

Deere never bother our crops much. They nibble on corn but it doesn't amount to much. Our big problem is coons trashing the corn, turkeys pulling up young corn plants when it's first coming out of the ground, and woodchucks destroying everything in our kitchen garden.

Is that John Deere that keeps crashing through the fence? Might need a concrete wall for that type of deere. :lol:

 

[jdemaris]

A vet told me to string one strand of electric wire and hang a little metal container full of peanut butter from it. That's my plan.

I've also heard that deer won't walk on wire fencing (like chicken wire) laying on the ground. That might complicate mowing, but you could probably build it into a frame that could be retracted or moved. I don't know. I really despise deer in the summer. If I didn't live in the village, I'd blast them with birdshot.

I can shoot deer whenever I feel like it except during hunting season. Encon gives me nuisance permits. During hunting season I can't use them and must get a hunting license instead, even when shooting on my own land.

Doesn't matter, I don't shoot them anymore anyway. The damage that the deer do is almost nothing compared to what the coons, woodchucks, and turkeys do.

 

[dvellone]

I have a friend that has the same problem with deer constantly crashing through his electric fence and his is a standard ac powered model. Don't know what the difference is except to say that, aside from a rare crash, if it happens constantly the deer aren't getting enough of a jolt. They'll learn pretty quick as all animals do to respect the fence if it's putting out a proper charge. It doesn't matter how many grounds you have if the quality of the ground isn't ideal. If the wire is shorting out somewhere that'll greatly reduce the charge.

I inherited the solar charger from a friend that used it on a commercial farm protecting a huge vegetable garden from deer, and I use it to contain my pigs on their large pasture as well as protect the garden. I've introduced the hogs to the pasture a couple times once they fully grown and feared that having not "learned" the fence as piglets they would go right through it. They never did. If you can get it to work it can be a good alternative to protecting a large area. It also keeps my chickens out.

 

[kenny chaos]

You're correct to say that the deer are crashing into it.
If you use aluminum coated (shiny) wire or hang something on the fence, the deer would much rather go over or under it except on the darkest nights.

 

[Flatbedford]

Any suggestions for a good gardening forum?

 

[eba1225]

My biggest suggestion is to first kill the grass before rototilling or it will be a pain later in the season. I would recommend a treatment of RoundUp for the area that will be the garden. Let it sit for a week or so and then have at it with the Rototiller.

The rototiller is better for the soil as it keeps the fertile topsoil near the top.

Gardens are great but the weeds are a pain.

 

[Ted79]

The tomatoes are established plants and we plant after the risk of frost is gone, usually Memorial Day here in SW Michigan. The rest we start by seed early........More importantly, where are you doing this ? Whats the soil like and can you protect from rabbits and other pests ? As far as the rototillar rental, I did this years ago when I wanted a garden in a stretch of established lawn. I figured, no prob, I will roto an area. It was a heckuva job controlling the tillar trying to cut through that lawn...I was sore for days

Hello everybody! We have soil black earth. For plants very good. But at first we prepare soil - dig over it, sprinkle with an ash, chicken dung. It all is a fertilizer for soil. And then prepare seedlings. We wet seed in a manganese. We plant seed in pots. We pour. Then already plant the prepared plants in the prepared the ground.

 

[karri0n]

I agree with the intensive gardening practices. I have yet to take a look at the link, but a great book on the subject is "How to Grow More Vegetables" by John Jeavons. This is widely regarded as the very best book on the subject, and has been around for over 30 years. I believe it is now in edition 5. The only problem I've really had is the biointensive standard used in the book is 2 foot deep raised double dug beds. You're pulling a LOT of rock out of the ground if you're digging a 2 foot bed in my area in CT, and the displacement those rocks provide is pretty major. I had to use about double the amount of compost listed just to make the beds level with what they were before. My plot is on the top of a pretty decent grade, so I still get the drainage benefits of the raised bed, but if this isn't the case in your instance, be prepared to add extra soil or compost in order to not drop the elevation of the garden beds signifigantly, if you have very rocky soil.

 

[begreen]

Our gardens grow rocks. No matter how well we clean it out, there's a fresh crop every year. I could sell ballast if there was a good market for it.

 

[karri0n]

I was worried I was going to have to take rock off of one of my stone walls for making the two-layer rock borders around the beds, but I got about twice what I needed in large rocks to make the border from just digging one bed.

 

[dvellone]

Our gardens grow rocks. No matter how well we clean it out, there's a fresh crop every year. I could sell ballast if there was a good market for it.

palletize them and rake in the money :lol:

 

[begreen]

Hmm, maybe I could sell the round ones as rolling stones? %-P

 

[Dix]

Poppa was a rollin' stone.......

 

[Flatbedford]

....And when he died,

 

[Gooserider]

Any ideas on getting rid of the weeds in a raised bed? - I have started the experiment this year of using some recycled deck boards from a porch we had that collapsed to make beds 3' wide, w/ 2' gaps between them that I laid out on top of my old garden patch which wasn't all that great for soil... I filled them with a few inches of chopped leaves from the compost pile I started last fall (which only sort of digested them) and topped that with a couple of inches of finished compost a friend gave me... I ended up with probably about 130-140 feet of beds, and a few feet additional of stuff that I'd already planted - mostly perenial stuff I didn't want to dig up, and had run out of boards to make beds with anyway... Most of the plants I've put in are doing real well, but the weeds seem to be doing even better... :coolmad:

Mostly I'm growing peppers - about 15 different sorts, half hots and half bells. I've also got 5 kinds of lettuce, brocoli, onions assorted herbs, zuch's, summer squash, and some squash called "cousa magda" - the garden center guy was out of summer squash on my first trip, and so I got these as an experiment - they were described as a white "very ethnic" Mediteranian squash - will see what they do...

I've put in a fence w/ chicken wire around the garden - about 2' up the poles and 1' spread out along the ground - local pests are mostly rabbits and groundhogs - bambi has been seen within a mile of our house, but I've never seen any evidence that the antler-rats have gotten any closer... So far the fence seems to be working...

Gooserider

 

[SolarAndWood]

We mulch with grass clippings around the peppers and tomatoes. A quick run through with the cultivator before you put it down is key. The only downside is that it takes a lot of grass. Even with the contributions from our neighbors, we just have enough to keep up. Don't use it near the broccoli as it attracts cole moths especially in a cool wet spring.

 

[sinnian]

We have a TON of deer where I am! We always plant marigolds around then garden perimeter and have never had deer problems in the vegetable garden. The 100's of hostas in our flower gardens may be the reason too :-S

 

[Flatbedford]

We have a TON of deer where I am! We always plant marigolds around then garden perimeter and have never had deer problems in the vegetable garden. The 100's of hostas in our flower gardens may be the reason too :-S

Do marigolds and hostas actually repel the deer?

 

[GunSeth]

Deer eat the hostas. They love 'em.