keeping deer from eating water melons

Other than electric fences and repellents, is there some kind of device that can be made at home to keep deer from eating watermelons? My Dad is 74 and still likes to garden, but the deer ate every one of his ripening watermelons this year (and it was a very big patch.) Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks!

non electric fence

a net? (a lot of net if a big patch ;0)

the folks here hang the pie plates with fabric strings in between and surround their veggie gardens. I am not sure it works but I see it done year after year same gardens

install a few posts....surround the garden....hang a few rows of string between the posts... tie fabric strips so that they blow in the wind (maybe 8 inches long.... 4 inches wide (a guess) and hang a pie tin between a few fabric strips along the top row of string. . Not too much trouble and not expensive (well...I am not sure how much the tins cost) but again --- I don't know that it works but I see it done and again --same folks doing it. Can't imagine they would keep doing if not working.

Maybe motion-sensor lights? Human hair (such as from a barber or hairdresser) and bar soap, also Bounce fabric softener sheets, are said to keep the deer away.

Or you could try planting something they like some distance away from the garden to lure them away.

For whatever reason, deer hate the smell of Irish Spring soap. Drive several stakes around the watermelon patch and hang a bar of it from each.

Lots of deterrants work for a while. Unfortunately if there are large numbers of deer and they get hungry they are very difficult to deter and they will eat just about anything. If they don't start eating the vines early as they begin to run, I can usually keep them off ripening melons with blood meal or a repellant like Shotgun which is a mix of pepper, garlic, etc. Have to keep changing as they adapt. Seem to have lost thier fear of humans here so hair and urine do not work. One walked into a Walmart here the other day.

Shotgun sounds permanent.
We haven't had trouble in watermelons, but carrots & beets.
Electric fence is only option. Buy the most powerful one you can find. Tie rags or flags on the wire if your worried about people running into it.
Here they (the deer), only bother after dark, so you can turn the fence off during daylight hours.

Not here -- those hungry little buggers have stood right in front of me and chomped away broad daylight.

Design a "cage" of sorts for a big area so the watermelon can grow undisturbed by the rotten deer. One section should be removable so your dad can harvest the melons and immediately put that section back in place.

I have to protect everything from the deer.

An old farmer friend years ago just covered them with straw and planted extras , above what he expected to take to market .

If ours stood out in the daylight, they wouldn't be there the next day!

We had to enclose the entire vegetable garden this year since the deer ate every broccoli and cauliflower last year and probably 80% of the cucumbers.

Country do you mean because of the hunters? So much has been closed off to the hunters that the deer are very 'secure' - I got out of the car... closed the door and that is a loud noise... walked up the stone path and came face to face with a deer that wasn't the least bit concerned that I was there. I drive up in the broad daylight..and there is a herd..males, females and the young ones all grazing away on things that they 'don't eat.' And if they don't eat...they pull out of the ground. The zinnia --for sure not eaten--- are all unplugged from the ground ....roots frying in the sun.

Wow! Lots of good ideas in these posts! Thank you so much!

Can sense the frustration that the deer have caused some of you - so my dad is in good company. LOL!

I'll pass your ideas on to him. Maybe next year he'll get to eat a watermelon or two.

Liquid fence or Deer scram

The deer here are brazen and aren't afraid of confrontation. Deer Scram is based on the principle that deer won't go in an area where another deer has died. Well, a deer was hit on the main road in town and managed to get to a lot next to my friend's house. The other deer still hang out in the same spot, undeterred by the death of the deer and it's stinking body for days in this horrible heat.

My friend sprayed daily with Liquid Fence and they still got every single lily and daylily.

Hello , ladypearl , I grew up in Wichita Falls . Learned to swim at Westmorland pool .Probably years before you was born ..Pioneer #3 , those were the days

pirl,
What the manufacturer's of such sprays don't want the general public to know is that all wild critters, including deer, deal with other dead animals every day of their lives. I was out in the woods with my camera and came up on a deer that had died from blue tongue. She was in a creek area (blue tongue makes them seek water) and the crossing used by the general deer population was still full of fresh tracks even though the dead deer was only a few feet from it.

Quite clearly it doesn't bother the living deer at all.