Installing deer netting

Start attaching the fence to the post from the bottom of your fencing material, and work your way up the support. Leave about inches of play to account for dips and hills when you stretch it out. Stretch your fencing out a few feet and bend it against the direction it was rolled up in to help eliminate that memory. Keep this process going! You can safely space most lightweight deer netting with about 20 feet between posts, while metal fences and those comprised of heavier materials should have supports placed about 15 feet apart.

Place your supports, spaced at these intervals, and unroll your fencing. Attach it with whatever your preferred material is. If you encounter obstacles in the way like houses you can attach the fence to them with carpenter staples or your preferred material and cut the netting flush, then continue on the other side of the obstacle. If you reach the end of your fence and return to the starting point, simply tie the fencing together as cleanly and attractively as you can and wrap things up!

Installing your deer fence in a way that coordinates with other natural barriers like hedges, walls, and natural deterrents is the smartest way to reinforce your fence. Using smelly deterrents like Scram works well, but so does offering the local deer an alternative food source. My uncle accepts a certain level of deer damage in his backwoods garden plot, but he minimizes the damage by stocking piles of corn and apples a thousand feet away from his garden plots.

Running a wire along the top of your posts can help to keep your fencing secure and taut, but I find the process unnecessary. To attach tension wire to rebar, you can wrap the wire firmly around the rebar and continue to the next post.

If you are using specialty fence posts for this project, you make a loop with the wire and run a Gripple through it, then tighten the gripple with the ratcheting tool.

This method tends to bend the posts as you work up and down the line, but applying equal tension along the fenceline helps to straighten things up. Although a well-done fence is largely hidden from your view, it should still be visible to the deer themselves, and to birds. This is especially important when you first set up your fence because the deer are not used to the barrier being in place and could jump right into it, ruining all of your hard work.

I like to get rolls of high visibility tape to hang every six feet or so from the fence at about head height. Let the loose ends dangle and move in the breeze so that animals can spot it from far away. Fortunately, this is a breeze to take care of. Give your fence line a little walk and inspection once a week or so to scout for damage. You literally will zip up sections of the fence that have come undone from their supports, or reinsert pins in the ground to keep it in place.

This is almost identical to the installation process. Groundhogs could chew their way through, or a fallen tree limb can damage the fencing, so larger repairs are necessary at times. Using scissors or your pruners, cut out the damaged area. Cut a new piece of fencing and — yep, you guessed it — zip it in place.

This helps reinforce the strength of your repair. Not too crazy of a project, is it? See our TOS for more details. Matt Suwak was reared by the bear and the bobcat and the coyote of rural Pennsylvania. This upbringing keeps him permanently affixed to the outdoors where most of his personal time is invested in gardening, bird watching, and hiking. He presently resides in Philadelphia and works under the sun as a landscaper and gardener, and by moonlight as a writer.

He considers folksy adages priceless treasures and is fueled almost entirely by beer and hot sauce. Hi Matt, Loved your article. I have also grown vegetable gardens for 50 years.

A few years ago, I found myself challenged with wildlife causing destruction in my gardens, deer in particular. At that time, I developed an alternative that allows gardeners to fully protect their gardens without fencing or toxic chemicals. For a vegetable garden, place it far enough away from rows that you can still walk around the ends to tend crops and do weeding.

For ornamental beds, allow space for plants to grow and not poke through the netting, tempting deer. Install the corner posts first and run string between them to act as a guide to ensure line posts are installed in a straight line. Deer can jump about 8 feet high, so install posts and netting at least 8 feet tall. To keep the posts sturdy, one-third of the post should be sunk underground.

This requires a post at least 12 feet long. Deer netting usually comes with metal sleeves that are hammered into the ground and metal rods inserted into them for fence posts. Space the posts about 15 feet apart or closer for a sturdier fence. Set on pair of posts 3 feet apart for a gate.

For heavy soil, soaking the ground with water first makes pounding posts in easier. Start by attaching the netting on one gate post. The ease of installation means the netting cover can be easily removed or applied whenever necessary. We never knew how much fun a head of cabbage, five apples and two cherry tomatoes would be to frustrate those pesky deer!

Although we made this video in jest, we wanted to prove a point. What better way to demonstrate than to catch those low-down deer in the act. We assembled Bob because we needed a victim and besides a pile of vegetables would not be as fun.

By the way, the name "Bob" was given for the motion his head was doing when those mean old deer wanted to eat his face. At the end, the squirrels won.

After a week they chewed the netting to get to the apples.