Deer Repellent Recipe

[lemongrove]

Here is an easy to make at home deer repellent recipe that works like a charm. It will work on everything that you grow. I initially started using it on roses and then on all my veggies, flowers and of course, herb.
Mix 3 eggs, 1/3 or a cup of dish washing liquid-I use an unscented brand, 1/3 cup tabasco sauce or any good hot sauce ( the cheaper Chrystal brand sold in the Mexican section of my super market is even better) and one cup water. Thoroughly mix in a blender,with a hand held blender in a bowl or with a hand mixer. Pour this mixture into a one gallon sprayer and fill up to the one gallon mark with water. Spray once a week and the deer will not touch your plants. I've seen deer go up to plants I've sprayed, take a whiff and practically jump back.
I live in an area that has a lot of deer. People in my neigborhood laughed at me when I told them I was going to grow roses.
They all told me, " Good luck with that!" Guess what? I grow a bunch of roses every year, now they use my recipe and they grow roses too. At the end of the growing season I stop spraying and let the deer prune my roses for me. Cheap labor.
If you don't have a one gallon sprayer just pour the mixture, that has been diluted with the one gallon of water, into smaller sprayers. You can keep the remaining mixture you don't use in the frig. for about a week or so but then toss it after that because it looses potency. Remember to spray once a week!

 

[Stoner Bob]

Thanks for this. I'm not going to spray my plants, But I will mix some up to spray my smart pots and the area near the plants. Hopefully the smell deters em, like you say.

I don't see deer often( maybe a few times in a year), but a few weeks ago I saw a buck on the hillside in the evening. Antlers were approx 6 to 8 points with velvet on them. Coyotes in the area also, but I haven't noticed any prints near my plants.

 

[THC123]

Nice one , in 2010 i lost 8/10 guerilla plants to deer eating the bark of the stem killing my babies just 3 weeks before harvest

 

[lemongrove]

I don't if that will work Stoner Bob. It might but I wouldn't risk my plants by doing that. Deer walk right to plant and if it's tall enough, like a marijuana plant will be, they keep their heads high and put their nose right on the plant. If they smell something they don't like on the plant they move away, if they like the smell, they start munching. This spray will not hurt your plants, at least it's never hurt any of mine but deer will kill them.
That's the kind of thing that guts you THC123. The spray will help. Gotta do it every week though. Miss a week and the deer will get them. They are persistent. It's not like they smell something bad once and then never come back. They keep coming back and testing the plants to see if the bad smell is gone. I love them but when it comes to plants they are pests.
Before I discovered this recipe I'd lay in bed at night and plot murder against them after they had killed some of my babies. If I had lived out in the country I probably would have just shot them as much as I hate to say it. I'm not a hunter, nothing against hunters mind you but I've never hunted so it's not in my nature. After they killed my babies though, I saw blood. Fortunately it never came to that. On a guerila grow you can't sit around and wait for them so you have to deter them some way. I've found this works for me.
Where I live it doesn't rain much at all in the summer. So as a disclaimer you may have to apply more often if you get frequent heavy rains. I don't know because I don't live in that kind of climate but as a precaution you may want to apply again after a downpour. Not sure if that's necessary but it may be.

 

[Stoner Bob]

Thanks for the info that spraying the area might not repel the deer. My only fear is that so far in my grow, I've sprayed my plants twice earlier in their growth. and both times resulted in leaves having holes in them the next day. that was probably my fault with spray timing on one application, and too much neem oil in the other.


I'm just afraid of messing them up at this point in the season.

 

[lemongrove]

Stoner Bob spray a lower branch or a few leaves and see how it reacts. I've never had any plant of any type, including some very delicate flowers, react poorly to this spray. By all means be cautious and spray a small part of one plant.
I've gotta tell you though that in five to ten minutes one deer can kill all of your plants; so you have to take some kind of precaution. You could, alternatively, put up some cheap deer fencing from Home Depot. Don't know how good it is but it's got to be better than nothing.
I'm telling you, you do not want to risk deer killing your plants and they will if they aren't prevented from doing so. Learn from THC123's experience, he lost 8 of 10 of his plants three weeks before harvest. You would be one very unhappy customer if that happened to you. Whatever you do, good luck.

 

[festerous]

I would be worried that such a foul smelling concoction would attract all of the "other" forest creatures.

In my neck of the woods 2 out of 3 deer prefer chilli pepper leaves over roses. Sometimes chewing up the peppers before spitting them out.

A life sized cutout of Warren Zevon and a $10 motion activated voice recorder wards off most intruders quite well.

 

[lemongrove]

Festerous I live in a place where I get elk, deer, raccoons, coyotes, skunk, all types of birds including bald eagles and hawks. None of them touch my plants. The mixture of the eggs and the pepper sauce does the trick and the soap helps it stick. A pepper leaf doesn't smell anything like a hot pepper sauce mixed with egg and soap. Before I used this deer would eat the leaves off of my pepper plants too. Not anymore. The smell is actually pretty faint because it is dilute and you can't smell it at all the next day but the animals can.
I've been using this for years with great success on everything I grow. No one in my neighborhood was able to grow roses and many other types flowers before I moved here. Now the neighbors that use this mixture are able to. It was easy to convince them after showing them all of my roses. The roses smell as sweet as they are supposed to.
I must admit though that Warren singing in my garden would be preferable.

 

[talktosamson]

The deer on my property stay far away from my plants like they are the plague. They eat everything else, all my azaleas, roses, my entire veggie garden minis the basil. But it's like they would know if they eat my pot they will either be 1. Dead fucking deer or 2. So stoned that the bear that lives on the property would catch and eat them. After three years on the property I've never seen even one bite out of a big leaf

 

[SunGrown]

The deer had never touched my plants before last year. One kept eating on my jack the ripper for whatever reason, but no others. This year I have had one eat on a blackberry clone only a couple times as well. Yesterday when I went into my very well fenced off garden (8' fences) a doe was in there eating on a squash plant and she freaked out and started trying to find a way out, not even sure how she made it in, hurt herself pretty good trying to get out.

At any rate she won't be back. I find dogs, guns and electric fence keep them away pretty well most of the time! I may try this spray on my sunflowers, tomatoes and squash though, since that is what they seem to like the best. I just don't want to spray it on my ganja since I worry it would interfere with my other foliar sprays. Thanks for the recipe!

 

[Jhhnn]

A country friend always had a problem with deer until she hooked up with somebody at the Denver Zoo, where she gets free lion dung. Now, the deer only bother the neighbors.

 

[lemongrove]

TTS I think they must know that #1 is the method of choice on your property so they step back. Sungrown & TTS I've had them eat enough of my herb to kill them in the past so I use the spray and it works for my situation. I can't be blastin' away in my neighborhood and I don't want to use an electric fence. Too many neighborhood kids and animals running around.
In most cases you have to do something because they can and will eat herb. I've known people who went for years with no deer problems and then the deer show up and do a number on their crop. I think if food sources are low some years they will eat stuff they don't normally eat.
I have a neighbor who has lived on my street for over 20 years and the deer never touched his arborvitae. Then one year they did a real ugly pruning job on them. The point is you need to take precautions, whatever you decide to do. I put too much time and put too much love into my herb to lose it.
What really pisses me off about deer is that they don't touch the nasty weeds I want them to eat. Fuckers

 

[SunGrown]

They are fuckers! The ones that are too small to consider putting in a freezer really piss me off, They do keep the manzanita pretty pruned which I like though.

 

[lemongrove]

SunGrown I had to do a search on the manzanita. The Wiki info. made it sound like it could be a pretty useful plant. With a 106 species of that plant I'm sure there are some nasty varieties. After reading about them I was intrigued. What is it you don't like about them?

 

[SunGrown]

They are useful plants, the original native peoples here used them for many things. I dont like that they spread like weeds! They do have really nice wood, very pretty really, lots of yellows and reds in the grain.

 

[lemongrove]

So if they are invasive can you control the spread? I'm now kind of interested in planting one.

 

[SunGrown]

I can send you some of the berries/seeds if you want. Maybe even dig up a small start or three and put em in a box.

And I'm not sure I would call them invasive, but yeah, you can control the spread...with a chainsaw!

What is your climate? They only grow really well at elevation above 1000 feet typically. I am at 3500'.

 

[lemongrove]

Thanks for the off but I'm at an elevation of just a little above 200 feet. So do they branch out very wide? Is that what you mean by they take over? Is it like bamboo that send out rhizomes?

 

[lemongrove]

Thanks for the offer is what I meant to type?

 

[SunGrown]

No problem. And no rhizomes. they are trees/bushes. With lots of berries/seeds.