Green House Manor: Anti Critter Solutions: Peanut Butter and Magic Juice

Probably the second most important thing about gardening besides having sun, is pest control. I family of deer, rabbits, and sometimes squirrels can wipe out an entire garden in one night. Don’t get me wrong, im a hippie who loves all my forest creatures, is sing to them, I pet them, but I do not want to put hours and hours of work into filling up their little bellies!

DEER- the biggest problem we have. We did container gardening last year just to see if they would be a problem and they ate everything (a mommy and two little baby deer). Deer can jump an 8ft fence if they really wanted to, so how do you keep them out do you ask? The only way to keep them out if you already have an existing deer population is to get electricity involved. Basically you charge a wire and put peanut butter on it. An unsuspecting deer comes to lick of the butter and BAM. They never come near the Garden again (peanut butter is necessary so the deer do no simply jump the fence and move right on to veggies)

We had 16 feet of a dilapidated fence in our back yard, so we dismantled it and built a pasture fence out of it. This fence will keep nothing out, it just hold up the electric wire (you can also use PVC pipe every 20ft. we just wanted a more permanent structure). Because we used wood we needed something to insulate the wire- we simply wrapped electric tape around a nail. Then used nine gauge wire and hooked it up to the fence charger (purchased at ace hardware). You also have to ground it with a grounding rod. When we tested it we were nervous and then disappointed to find that there was only a slight sizzle noise when we touched the wire. When we tested the voltage it was off the charts and we were beginning to think we might be X-men, but then we realized that if were X-men their would be no way we would have the same mutation of absorbing electric shock, so we decided to call the charger company. The nice lady on the phone said that we were not mutants, but rather it was our rubber soled shoes that we keeping us from grounding the electricity, meaning no pain. So we took our shoes off expecting little after hyping ourselves out for no reason the first time and BAM. It hurt. Poor Deer.

Rabbits- we added chicken wire to the bottom 1 ½ feet of the fence- costly but priceless

Squirrels- We hope the chicken wire will discourage them, but we also are lining the garden with vining veggies such as squash, watermelon, and cucumber- I hear on good authority that vines spook sqirells. What doesn’t spook a squirrel?

Insects and Diseases- I have a magic potion that will keep my garden mostly insect free and most diseases out.

1 gallon of Water, 2 TBS of Sevin Pesticide Consintrate,2 TBS of Sulfur, and 2 TBS of ‘Dicamba’ fungicide or anything with Chlorathoramil. Its magical if you spray it twice a month.

Old Fence that was here when we bought the house