Deer Me! 5 Tips For Repelling Deer

Editor Peter Geiger shares some tried-and-true tips for deterring deer from your garden—without dangerous chemicals!

5 Tips For Repelling Deer

These tried-and-true remedies are great for deterring deer without chemicals:

  1. Hot pepper or Cayenne – sprinkle over surviving plants.
  2. Dried Blood Meal (found at home garden centers) – Often used as an organic fertilizer, blood meal is made from dried cow or pig blood. Its main purpose is to add nitrogen to the soil for plants. Deer don’t like the smell, and it can help keep them out of your garden. If you can determine the direction from which the deer are coming across your yard, you can spread the dried blood meal along the path to send a “stay out” message even before they set foot in it.
  3. Dial™ soap is reported to be a deterrent – original. Drill a hole and hang from trees or shave pieces and put in a stocking and hang. We’re not sure why this works, but numerous reports from readers say it does. But it has to be Dial. 
  4. Aluminum foil – Protect shrubs or saplings by wrapping their bases with aluminum foil. The foil should at least be as high as your waist because deer tend to feast on plants that are shorter than they are. This method is also good for deterring other garden destroyers like mice and rabbits.
  5. Tin cans tied to a post – the sound startles them.

Bonus: here’s another DIY deer repellent you can make at home.

If you have another solution to deter deer, I’d love to hear it!

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Farmers' Almanac - Weather forecasting
Peter Geiger

Peter Geiger is the Editor of the Farmers' Almanac. Read his full biography.

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cameron

Caution tape in a perimeter around your garden can scare of the deer or small rodents

Sandy Grimmel

Red fox urine is the all-natural, organic and humane way to deter most yard and garden pests including deer, rabbits, skunk, ground hogs and small rodents. Long used by gardeners, this proven non kill method utilizes 99% pure red fox urine predator scent to trigger the fight or flight response in small animals of prey

Kovener

We use sprigs from the Yews around our house. My husband sticks sprigs in the ground every 1 or 2 feet along the row of his edemame beans. That stopped the deer and rabbits. The Yew plant is poison to animals and they do not eat it.

Henry Hekker

On the other hand give up and enjoy them. We live in rural Texas and the severe drought has affected their food and water supply. We buy 800 pounds of deer feed (corn, nuggets, and protein) a month and have 5 water stations. We also buy 300 pounds of black oil sunflower seed, 100 pounds of scratch, and 40 pounds of Niger thistle for the birds. 30 pounds of raw peanuts for birds and squirrels. One evening I was in the barn mixing the deer feed when a doe walked in and reminded me I was 20 minutes late with dinner. 8 others were waiting outside. The area between the house and barn is fenced in with cattle panel for the dogs to run and my wife’s plants. We enjoy sitting on the deck and watching all the critters that come in.

Gloria Boyd

Will the same deterrents work for groundhogs? They are a huge problem for our garden. They burrow under fencing.

Aaron

I am a proffesional nuisance trapper and best repellent i use and recommend is coyote urine, can be found online by the gallon from trap supply companies and put in a spray bottle, spray the perimeter of your property about once a week,and enjoy deer free food. We at our own home last year had 5 deer hanging around trying to destroy the garden this year deer stay in the next yard over and wander on.

Linda Hanson

A raw egg in a empty gallon milk jug, shake it up and use to water your hosta’s, refill as necessary. Done this for two years now, and my hosta’s have not dessert for the deer.

Jay Rector

36″ chicken wire laid on th ground on the out side of your fence. Deer are high jumpers not broad jumpers.

maria ruocco

the best thing to keep the nibblers away from our gardens was from a friendship with a local animal farm and the availability of big cat scat- applied around the perimeter and nothing entered the garden

Renee

Milorganite works great. Replace it once a month. It’s also a fertilizer

Renee

Milorganite, works great. Replace it every month. Best thing, it’s also a fertilizer

Sarah Trickett

i agree with Nancy, Liquid Fence is the only thing I’ve had success with. It works really well!!!!

Cyndi

Cyndi’s Deer Juice-
2 raw eggs, 4 cloves garlic minced, 2 TBSP hot sauce, 2TBSP Cayenne pepper, 2 cups water! Puree together in mason jar, let sit on counter for two days, then store in refridgerator. I use a paint brush and just dip the brush in and flick(splash) it at the plants you are protecting. Spray bottles get clogged right away. We have tons of deer here and I have been using this for 4 years and have never had a problem since then. Good luck and get ‘flicking’ !;-D

Linda Biggs

Moving to the Blue Ridge Parkway of Va, we were not sure of deer OR bear. Well, the garden has been in since early-mid may. So far the plants inside the fence of 5.5 ft above ground are safe. deer visit the apple tree right next to it and are satisfied with just apples so far. I made the garden narrow and long with lots of tall tomato stakes throughout to be confusing and spikey. Near each end it still looked easy to jump in so I tied roping crisscrossing through each end just over my head. So far, so good. The deer are curious and sniff around. Just outside the fenced part are potatoes, cuke plants and 2 types of winter
squash. Starting to produce small fruit with no damage! To protect all my work I will buy blood meal and apply. Thanks for info!

Nancy

I have found a product called Liquid Fence that really works. I have tried all the other solutions and nothing seems to work. Thanks to this product I actually have had lilies, hosta, phlox and tomatoes for 2 years straight now! With the excessive rain we have had this year I have had to apply it a little more often, but generally it is good for a few weeks. It can be found at any of the home stores. It says it is environmentally safe.

Paula Dupree

I truly believe from my heart, Farmers Almanac should advertise toward children.
There is so much our children are learning in this fast pace world, except some of the little things in life. Like making summer Sun Tea or what the moon, sun, water is all about. After all the moon, sun, water makes our planet whole. And of course GARDENING. Thank you Farmers for educating me every day.
Nana P. Dupree

Susan Higgins

Thank you, Paula Dupree, we appreciate your kind words! We hope that many parents and teachers use the Almanac as a tool to teach kids about gardening, astronomy, etc.

Chris Aylward

This would have gone better and been more feasible if you had posted a picture of the same hosta. They are not even the same variety. Duh! Also, nothing deters deer except a 7 foot high fence. I have been battling the little buggers for 13 years in Quispamsis and had no plants until the fence went in. It’s 1 foot off the ground and 7 feet tall. They crawled under when it was 2 feet off the ground, so I had to add cross rails to the bottom. I tried every product possible including a very expensive spray to no avail. If you have deer, a fence of a free ranging large dog are about the only deterrents that will guarantee the safety of your prized plants.

Susan Higgins

Chris Aylward, thank you for kindly pointing out our mistake, we have changed the captions on the photos.

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