Earlier this year I planted two young apple trees (McIntosh and Honeycrisp), and living in deer country I took a few precautions to deter them from eating the green shoots and damaging or destroying my efforts.
By the way, planting fruit bearing trees is an excellent proactive action for preparedness sake…
Here’s what I did, and lets hear your own recommendations too:
1. Assemble a fence around the young apple tree as a deer deterrent perimeter.
2. Hang a deer deterrent scent around the fence.
So far it has worked…
Apple Tree Deer Fence
The fence is an ordinary welded-wire fence (Home Depot) which is supported by two T-posts. The fence measures about 15 feet in length, and the circumference provides several feet of clearance around the apple tree. The diameter of the fence circle is just about 5 feet. The welded wire fence itself is 5 feet tall.
Deer Deterrent Scent
Apparently, deer do not like the scent of Irish Spring soap! So I cut up several bars into pieces which I slipped into several pairs of women’s ‘knee socks’ (I had Mrs.J purchase those 😉 ). I then hung the Irish Spring soap laden socks around the fence. Actually I only dropped 3 or 4 chunks (slices) of soap into each sock.
Irish Spring Deodorant Soap Original Scent – 4 Ounce/20 ct
(good for your general purpose preps too)
(my ‘Irish Spring’ work station)
What about you? Any deer deterrent tips for apple trees or other such similar situation?
