deer are eating my compost

[midnight armadillo]

I'm mostly concerned about deer learning to come to the yard for food and eating the garden. ANy way to keep them out of a compost pile? It's brand new and I have nothing to bury deposits to the pile with except molding leaves.

[taterguy]

1. Got a rifle?

:sarcasm:, in case anyone couldn't tell

[Orrex]

2. Put up a sign about 20 feet from the compost pile that says "The Buck Stops Here"

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. That was a face-palmer for sure, but I am wearing glasses.

[Dogtown]

3. Blood-meal

It's a fertilizer. Made from blood, the smell should discourage the deer.

Or, you could pee all around the perimeter....

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. My dad used to have the dogs pee around the garden. No help at all.

[Dogtown]

9. Yeah, long shot.

I don't have any real knowledge on the blood-meal, either. Anecdotal only.

[Shell Beau]

4. My husband uses this all natural spray that is specifically

for keeping the deer away. I'll try to find out the name. He works in landscaping, and they have to use this in a lot of yards. It stinks some kinda bad though.

[MiddleFingerMom]

7. Legend has it that MiddleFingerMom once grew...

.
...what he thought were "Australian tomatoes" in a clearing DEEP
in the woods.
.
At first, small animals (he thought) were eating the tender plants
and the ones that survived THAT onslaught eventually were being
eaten from the top down by deer (again... he thought).
.
He tried EVERYTHING -- wore gym socks for days (resulted in a mild
case of athlete's foot), cut them in pieces and put them at the base
of the plants, sprinkled dried blood from the gardening department,
decanted his pee into 2-liter soda bottles and backpacked them in to
sprinkle all over the plants -- NOTHING worked.
.
Until he remembered an old recipe he had seen in a years-old issue
of some "Australian Tomato Growing" magazine.
.
Try sprinkling it liberally (sorry) with a 1-in-10 dilution of Tabasco in
water. The Tabasco makes their tongues tingle and that's (apparently)
an instinctual poison warning.
.

[LeftyMom]

8. The Oakland PD's non-emergency line is [phone]

You're welcome.

[NNadir]

10. Suburban deer have all learned to eat suburban food, be it compost, tomato plants

small trees, whatever.

These deer have one, and only one, predator, the car.

Here in New Jersey, my ideal solution would be to re-introduce our native Puma, which is extinct in these parts, along with a healthy helping of wolves, also extinct. We do have suburban coyotes and some fox too.

Won't happen though.

The idea of "wild deer" though, is a bit absurd.

As for compost, it is a good idea whether the deer eat it or not. You can cover it with grass clippings or better yet, a little soil - dig a pit. Where I live, however, coyotes, dogs and raccoons dig it up, or ants get it.

I'm OK with this. My point is to redistribute precious phosphate that does not come from phosphate rock mines. If the deer redistribute it as spoor, at the least the whole environment is getting it in a relatively natural way. Ditto raccoons, dogs, ants etc.

Generally enough will remain to give you very, very, very, very, very good soil, no matter what you do.

[midnight armadillo]

13. You know what bugs me is not that they're eating it...

...it's that they're crumpling the mesh walls of the bin. Firearms are out of the question in suburbia.

Tonight's kitchen scraps are well-buried under a mound of yard stuff, so if they get through that I'll make a mesh top. I think once the pile is really cooking they will be less inclined to dig in it for food.

[NNadir]

15. Over the years, the compost pile at my house has not had mesh or structure.

Generally it's a hole.

We're excentric. I have neighbors who worry that they're "composting wrong," and I think, "how can you make a mistake rotting things?"

My boys and are always fascinated by the flora and fauna the hole generates. We find all sorts of interesting bugs, worms, other creatures, tracks and evidence. It's a great joy.

We're not well manicured here at my home.

I'm quite sure we're considered slobs, particularly because I believe in minimal mowing. I mean I do mow once in a while - although I regret it - but there's no reason to do it all that often. You miss things if you mow too much.

The rule here is that if a tree sprouts - any tree - it cannot be mowed, with the exception of a kind of introduced olive tree that is a weed around these parts that is something of a threat to native forest.

Last summer my little guy and I went out on our "lawn" such as it is, and counted species of plants, not counting fungi. We identified over 100 species, and I don't think we did much repetition. We have some very marvelous weeds.

There is nothing in a Scots lawn bag that can be as beautiful as that morning with my boy.

My house is surrounded by woods on two sides belonging to one of my neighbors. All kinds of species blow in from there. My neighbors have a creek on their property, and it's um, very "biodiverse."

The other neighbor, I'm sure is unhappy with my approach to my lawn, but I in turn am unhappy to their approach to my groundwater, so...well...

But simple is good, I think. We think too much about landscaping in this country and not enough about land.

Doing a compost pile, "right" composting or "wrong" composting is a good thing, helps one to grow. Good luck with it.

[kayakjohnny]

11. Spice it up with a little cayenne pepper ( red pepper at the store)

Most critters have a problem with the heat. But it won't hurt them.

If it doesn't work initially, bump up the doe(s), ummmm, dose. Sorry.

[gmoney]

12. chicken wire or a chunk of fencing or something laid over top?

[Lasher]

14. Electric fence.

I couldn't have a garden without one. It's easy to put a small one up.