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| HI,
I am almost to the point of spraying anti-deer chemicals. Does anyone know any good home-brew recipes, perhaps made with peppers? |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by joepyeweed 5b IL (My Page) on Sat, Feb 26, 05 at 20:47
| i use cayenne pepper straight out of the bottle. i buy the large generic container. unfortunately, i do have to reapply after every rainfall... i use it mostly to keep seedlings, young and tender plants from being devoured before they get a chance. |
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| I recently tried the following: 1 egg 1 teaspoon tabasco sauce 1.5 quarts (6 cups) water Put in a jug, shake it up, then mist it over plants. Before you buy some of the commercial deer repellants, look at the ingredients. Some list rotten eggs (under a fancier name) as the main ingredient ... might as well try the homebrewed version first, I figure. |
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| I have heard that the ingredient in commercial preps that promise to last for 3 months (yeah, right) is Elmer's glue. I just planted out 30 baby firs, 15 yellow alaska cedar and a few shore pine, red flowering currant and indian plum. So I'm going to make up a home brew that's peppery hot and stinky. We'll see how Bambi doesn't like it. June |
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- Posted by Virginia_W z3 WI (My Page) on Thu, Mar 17, 05 at 16:04
| My husband makes a home brew of crushed garlic, tabasco sauce, rotten eggs (yes, he lets the eggs get rotten first), and water. I wouldn't want to work with it, but I'm grateful all summer he does it. It really does work. We live within a mile of a national forest in northern Wisconsin and deer visit all of our neighbors, but for the last three summers, they've avoided our garden. |
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| Brenda, Virginia’s brew sounds good enough to try (if not drink). I too have concocted something that works and does not readily wash off or deteriorate in sunlight. For 2 gallons of spray: 6 qt. water To prevent clogging of the sprayer, I usually strain the mixture. Note that the hot sauces are oily, so I wash and scrub out my sprayer with hot water and Dawn. I spray every three to four weeks. It works. But I have found a gadget that works very well, too. You might have seen them in catalogs pictured with decals (which I think are gaudy and don't use) to make them look like parrots. They hook up to a water source (which has to be open at all times) and are triggered by a motion sensor. I love watching the deer scramble when one of those goes off. Variable sensitivity settings (from Moose to raindrop); runs on a 9v battery all season. Dismantle before freezing weather; reassemble (easy) following year at new growth time. Unobtrusive and effective. Easy to turn off when working or walking in the garden. |
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| Does't cayenne pepper straight from the bottle have too much salt in it? Isn't salt bad for most plants? Is the concentration low enough not to harm the plants? |
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| a rutgers university deer study (local university in our area) indicated that the commercial sprays that were the most effective deterrants contained a substantial portion of capsicum and eggs. so i have a tub of chili powder and i use fresh eggs and mix it with water. but yes, unless you want to be going out there every time after it rains to spray everything again, i suggest adding some wilt-pruf ($6-7 for a regular spray bottle) to the mix to make it stick. i like that elmers glue suggestion though! maybe i'll try that this year. the deer will generally nibble for a taste, decide they don't like it and move on, so you should be at least prepared for some small damage the first time they come into your yard in spring. |
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