deer deterrent?

Deer are a never-ending problem around here, but especially in the vegetable garden. You will have a lovely row thriving one day, and the next it has been eaten away. Of course other varmints do this as well, especially groundhogs. But deer definitely cause problems.

For years Mama has insisted that a good deer deterrent is Octagon soap ( a form of bar soap that has been around for many years). You are supposed to cut a cake of soap into several pieces and then hang them around the garden fence to ward off the evil deer --- oops, I mean to keep the deer from coming into the garden. We microwave the whole bar for about 20 seconds. That softens it enough that it is manageable to cut and it does not flake.

Our method is to wrap the small sections of soap in netting and then use floral wire to attach the wrapped piece of soap to the barbed wire fence. Outside of the barbed wire fence is an electric fence. This approach is fairly effective in keeping out the deer. Of course it does nothing for ground-hugging animals like rabbits, groundhogs and skunks.  We cut up 8 bars of soap, each into six pieces.

 Brad is hanging a new little cake. I hope this remedy works!