Guides
Do Deer Eat Vegetables? Every Crop by How Often It Gets Eaten
Peppers, onions and melons are rarely touched; lettuce, beans, carrots and every brassica are eaten first. The Iowa State list, crop by crop, with what to do about the ones you want anyway.
Sep 15, 2026 · 11 min read
- Deer DeterrentsSep 14, 2026
Best Deer Repellent: What the Trials Rank First
A 20 percent egg spray ties the best commercial product on the Colorado State table and costs about two dollars a batch. What scored, what failed, and what nobody has tested.
5 min read
- Deer ProblemsJul 31, 2026
How to Keep Deer Out of Your Garden
What actually works, in the order worth trying it. Most gardens are lost at the ground line and the gate rather than to the jump everyone plans against.
8 min read
- Food Plots and Wildlife PlantingJul 30, 2026
The Wildlife Shrubs You Were Told to Plant
For forty years, state agencies handed out autumn olive and Russian olive to landowners specifically for wildlife. Both are now illegal to sell in parts of the country. What happened, and why sawtooth oak is the same story running again.
8 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
What a Deer Fence Costs
Realistic ranges by material and length, and why perimeter fencing is usually the wrong thing to buy first.
5 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
Deer Fence Kits: What You Get and What You Still Need
Kits are the fastest route to a working fence, and the fastest route to an expensive gap. What to check before buying.
6 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
Deer Fence Materials Compared
Polypropylene, welded wire, woven wire and metal. What each costs, how long it lasts, and which one your site actually needs.
7 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
Electric Deer Fencing
Cheaper and shorter than a physical fence, and it works on psychology rather than height.
6 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
Deer Fence Gates
The most common failure point in an otherwise sound fence, and the part most kits leave out.
5 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
Deer Fencing for Raised Beds
Raised beds are the easiest thing in the garden to protect properly, and the most commonly protected badly.
5 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Mailbox Garden Plan
Full sun, no water, road salt and total deer exposure. Plants that survive all four.
4 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Wall and Foundation Planting Plan
The strip at the base of a wall is the driest ground you own, and a wall stops nothing. Aspect decides the planting; the rain shadow decides whether it lives.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Deer-Resistant Rose Garden Plan
No rose is deer resistant, and rugosa rates no better than a hybrid tea. So the plan is an enclosure you can live with looking at.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Free Deer-Resistant Garden Plans
Four plans for the sites that defeat people: mailbox, roadside, wall and roses. Dimensions, quantities and spacing, and what each one cannot do.
4 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Roadside Bed Plan
Salt, plow spray and deer moving along the verge. Plus the sight-line rule that can have the town cut your planting down and bill you for it.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Color: Work With the Resistant Palette
Silver, blue and purple dominate the resistant palette because of what makes those plants resistant. Red is the genuinely hard part.
5 min read
- Deer DeterrentsJul 29, 2026
Milorganite as a Deer Repellent
A lawn fertilizer spread off-label as a repellent. It delays browsing for about a week to more than five weeks, then stops, and it does nothing in cold soil.
7 min read
- Deer ProblemsJul 29, 2026
Rabbits, Groundhogs and Voles
If the damage is below knee height it is probably not deer. Four other animals account for most of what gets blamed on them.
5 min read
- Deer DeterrentsJul 29, 2026
Hot Pepper and Capsaicin Repellents
Capsaicin does affect deer. Most products carry so little of it that the manufacturer's own label tells you to multiply the rate a hundredfold.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Structure: Build the Bones from Resistant Plants
Winter is when structure carries the garden and when browse pressure peaks. The decision that matters is not what gets eaten but what grows back.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Designing a Garden Deer Will Not Eat
Five decisions, in order. Made at the start they cost nothing; made afterwards they turn into a spraying habit you keep for years.
4 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Purpose: Decide What Each Area Is For
What a space is for decides how much defending it is worth. Get that order wrong and you spend the money in the wrong place.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Theme: Let the Style Choose the Plants
Some themes are deer-resistant almost by accident. Choosing one of those is easier than defending a theme that fights you.
6 min read
- Garden DesignJul 29, 2026
Contrast: Texture Over Flower Color
The resistant palette is short of coarse texture, which is the one thing a composition needs to hold together. Here is what fills the gap.
5 min read
- Deer DeterrentsJul 29, 2026
Predator Urine as a Deer Repellent
Deer do read predator scent. The commercial product is diluted twenty-fold, usually applied the least effective way, and registered without an efficacy test.
6 min read
- Deer ProblemsJul 29, 2026
How to Judge Deer Research
Not all deer evidence is the same kind. Knowing whether a finding came from a pen, a field or a committee tells you how far to trust it.
5 min read
- Deer DeterrentsJul 29, 2026
Homemade Deer Repellent That Actually Works
One homemade recipe rates as well as the best commercial products. It is eggs and water, and the details that make it work are small and specific.
6 min read
- Deer FencingJul 29, 2026
How Tall Does a Deer Fence Need to Be?
Eight feet is the answer. Here is why, and the two situations where you can get away with less.
6 min read
- Deer DeterrentsJul 29, 2026
Does Irish Spring Soap Repel Deer?
It is the most repeated deer remedy on the internet. The one trial that scored it rated it low to medium, and some deer ate the soap.
4 min read
- Deer ProblemsJul 29, 2026
How to Tell If Deer Are Eating Your Plants
Deer have no upper incisors, so they tear rather than cut. That one fact separates them from every other animal in the garden.
5 min read
- Deer DeterrentsJul 29, 2026
Garlic as a Deer Repellent
Garlic is in nearly every repellent recipe. In the trials that ranked products head to head, the garlic-dominant ones finished last.
6 min read
- Frequently Asked QuestionsJul 29, 2026
Deer-Resistant Garden Design FAQ
Layout questions: where the vulnerable plants go, whether to fence the bed or the boundary, and what a browse line is telling you.
5 min read
- Frequently Asked QuestionsJul 29, 2026
Deer-Resistant Plant FAQ
What the ratings mean, why lists contradict each other, and the substitutions that genuinely hold.
5 min read
- Frequently Asked QuestionsJul 29, 2026
Deer FAQ
How high they actually jump, when they feed, and why a plant ignored for years is stripped in February.
5 min read