DEER FENCE AROUND ORCHARD

This was the goal this weekend and it worked out!

A few weeks back, a regular blog reader sent us some links to some YouTube videos about making a simple deer deterrent fence for our fruit trees. We figured what do we have to lose and since there's not that much fruit we can test our options for the future. 

A couple of weeks ago I picked up ten metal fence posts, commonly called T-Posts, used for creating fences.  The ones I got were six feet high.  I also ordered a 1500 ft long roll of clear 30 lb test monofilament fishing line.

I did some research on this type of method.  You want to use clear and not colored or braided line for obvious reasons.  They also suggest using 30lb test line because anything less is not strong enough to hold up and anything heavier is visible to deer.

I was a little worried about getting the poles into the ground.  Last weekend when I tried putting them in it was not even remotely possible. The ground was so hard I barely made a dent in the dirt.  2nd Family has a post driver but they had loaned it out.  The hope this weekend was that all the rain softened the ground.  Wow did it ever!  It took about 5 minutes to get all the poles into the ground.  Yes!

I placed three down each long side of the orchard area and at one end I put an extra in the middle.  

I wrapped the fishing line around the starting pole, tied it off and then pulled it to the next pole, wrapped around it a few times pulling it tight so it didn't sag but not so tight that it might snap.  I repeated that all the way down one side, across the end and then up the other side until I reached the last post and tied it off.  Some suggestions were to go to the next level up and reverser until you had all the rows you wanted, tying it off only once at the very end.

We got to thinking that if one snapped anywhere, it would make them all loose so I just cut it and tied it when I completed each row.  I put four rows about 12 inches apart starting a foot or so off the ground.  You can kind of see them in the photo above.  Hard to see all of them but that's the point of this method.  If we have trouble seeing it so will they.

The last part is figuring out a "gate" or some sort of way in.  Honestly I can just duck between the lines and get in and that's what I'll do most of the time for working on the trees but I wanted to be able to get the mower in easily every few weeks.  There are all sorts of solutions out there.

My solution was an extra fence post.  You can see that above.  I just placed it near the pole where I started and then I tied from it to the "ending pole" on the other side.  That fenced up this end and I can pull it out of ground and "open" it to get in.  I figure if it doesn't go back into the ground easily later, I will just use bungee cords to attach the pole to the other one (as you can see in the photo).  

We'll see what happens.  People who have used this method say it works great.  The deer can't see the line and as they get close to it, it brushes/touches them and they get spooked.  If they can't see it they don't know how high to jump to avoid it so they will eventually take a different route and avoid the area if it keeps happening.

Thanks to the readers who suggested this.

We'll see what happens!