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Gardener: Defending your garden when deer are near

. . . the guy that had both a vegetable and a flower garden, during the drought, amidst a large deer heard in the West Desert, I can tell you only 2 things actually work:

1. For vegetables -- the 10 foot high fence or other physical barrier spoken about in the article. Note that it's only the unusually hungry deer that will vault over an 8 foot fence, but it will happen occasionally. And you'll also need to continue it at least 12 inches under the ground (use chicken wire) to keep the rabbits out;

2. For flowers -- a fairly powerful sprinkler head hooked up to a sprinkler system solenoid and a motion detecting floodlight. It needs to be a combination of water spray and light. Neither works alone for very long.

Forget about the alarms, repellants, scarecrows, and decoys. They just don't work.

Lastly, pray you don't get an infestation of crickets. Nothing you can do about them, short of a seagull miracle.