Water Harvesting

Sounds like the opening line to a joke! LOL

How high can a deer jump?
How high can you hold the ear of corn?

that's almost as bad as "How Long Do Lizards Keep?" lol

I'm no threat to late night TV, that's for sure! LOL

Aspiring comedienne gardens to hide lack of talent... =0)

yall crack me up....

I personally believe if you aren't a comedienne when you start gardening you will be in no time flat....

Janet

Thank you, Thank you very much.

Boredom can be a dangerous thing.

Lizards_keep ~ the east TX deer are a whitetail. I am not a good judge of height but I have seen some areas that have game fences up (mostly to keep deer in) but I would think they are 8 to 10 feet high. One old gardener here said he always planted a few extra rows for the wildlife but on the melons, it seems they can be wasteful just breaking into all the melons and not always eating all of it. We have larger growers within four miles of us on both sides and in the ripening season, they use propane cannons to scare the deer. The cannon makes a loud bang noise on a timer. I would hate to be their close neighbors as deer don't sleep. No easy answer just hope the deer have something else they would rather dine on.

I saw an interesting construction online about 2 years ago for deer fencing. The problem with most fencing is the deer can jump pretty high.

I don't know if I can describe it enough to make a picture for you... They put vertical fence posts in the ground, just like a normal fence. At each vertical post, they attached a long post (looked maybe 8-10 feet long) to the top, and let the far end rest on the ground, forming a slant. Then they string wire across the slanted posts, perhaps 10-12" apart, and attached some random tape flagging for visibility.

The explanation was that deer don't have the ability to judge clearly where the horizontal wires are, only that they are there and pose a hazard. Plus, although deer can jump high, their lateral leaps aren't as long.

My neighbor who raises grapes for wine has the heavy-duty plastic or rubber mesh fencing to keep deer out. He started with 6' high fencing and ultimately had to go to 10'.

As long as I'm posting, the Florida Solar Group had some good information online about rain water harvesting and cistern construction. I'll see if I can find the link later...

Alright, you all are scaring me.

Thanks Pod and Darious, that’s what I was afraid of. A guy here said to put a dog in the garden at night but you can’t tie him are the deer will learn pretty quick just how far he can go. Seems for this idea to work I would still have to have a fence to keep the dog in. Oh well just another problem to solve. Might just plant a good border of purple hulls to distract them maybe. Lol

I have seen the slant thing you are talking about before but it looks like it would be a nightmare trying to mow around and under.

Think I might try the plastic mesh fence at six feet and add a couple rows of flagging tape up to about eight or ten feet and see what happens.

If that canon is anything like the one they use for hail, I couldn’t stand the noise either.

Granny always said you had to plant three of everything, one for the birds, one for the bugs and one for you. She never said how many to plant for deer though. lol

lizards

if you are going to fence and have a dog then put in a fence 4' high and leave the dog inside the fence.... that is what I do with my collies, but only during spring summer and fall, winter I'm a wimp and bring my collies in even through they love being in the snow. As long as the collies are out they don't come by the fence or in the yard..... I grow hosta's with no worry of deer getting them cause I planted them on the outside of the fence right next to it.

Now the deer at first when we moved in didn't know what to make of the dogs as it ruined their running in everyone's back yard.... Now they stand at the edge of the woods which is about 15 feet from the back fence and taunt the dogs...

Janet

Our dogs are loose on our property and no deer venture into the gardens.

Sounds like a dog may be the answer. Will have to get something besides our house dog though, she finds her bed at dusk and stays there.lol

Thanks for the info.

Hope you don't mind barking dogs at night.... I can't bear 'em; it's why I moved out and away!

The plot will be quite a ways from the house so it shouldn’t be too bad. What’s noisy is the Blanking coyotes yapping and howling all night. Least I don’t have a bunny problem. Lol Pity the coyotes aren’t hungry enough to tackle a deer.

Oh yeah, the coyotes... but the worst part of them around here is they wake my dogs up, who then want to go outside and yell at 'em to shut up, along with every other dog in the valley. So EVERYbody's up!

But I think a love sick cow is louder... or maybe just closer... or maybe she carries on longer, like ALL night.

Lizards_keep ~ I'll loan you Stretch. He'll run a deer all right, just keeps on going after that deer. The others can slip in and feast behind his back.

Those coyotes will dine on an occasional deer, usually a yearling. And around here there are feral hogs which get a few young deer but can really wreak havoc on a garden.

A friend said today he fenced his garden spot with two strands of electric. The bottom one is about 12 to 16 inches off the ground and the upper is about 3 1/2 or 4 feet. That allows them to be tempted and tangled. Said it didn't take them long to learn to go the long way around.

Can I throw the spring peepers in as another annoying sound to listen to all day and all night?

I'd rather hear the spring peepers and the coyote chorus than the neighbour's music played overly loud through their truck's booming speakers everytime they start the truck. *sigh*

ribbit

Got that right! LOL

I did this 25 years ago--worked good for me----for wells under 200 ft

http://www.deeprock.com/HD/Default.aspx

This message was edited Jul 18, 2010 8:45 AM

This message was edited Jul 18, 2010 8:45 AM

VORTREKER, Thank you for that link!

Thanks for the info Vortreker. I guess I'm going to have to get sneaky to get a well down. lol

for those of you with ponds big enough for fish why not consider talapia instead of koi? Good easy beeding food source for warmer climates from what I can gather!

I am limited too a small scale but am considering fish in a small pond pumped up through guttering holding shallow-rooted edible plants. The plants will (in theory) thrive on the natural fish fertilizer while filtering the waste from the pond.

That's worth looking into. Thanks for the ideas