Gardens & deer, indoor plants & Cats- yep, I need help

[Dobela]

We moved to a new home last month with nearly 3 acres. I was happily dreaming about and planning my square foot gardens for next year until I spoke with my next door neighbor. Last year his gardens were destroyed by the deer in the area. In his 30 years of living here, last year was the worst. He says that he erected 10 ft high by 3ft wide fencing around his garden and the deer just tore it all off the posts. Granted it was heavy duty plastic gardening stuff and the orange plastic stuff you see at construction sites, so that may have been part of the reason why they could tear it down. We have already seen 4 deer crossing our property and I suspect there are more since we have the smallest lot in the semi rural area. I don't have the money to put up a large chain length fence just to garden. What can I do?

 

 

Problem #2 is my desire to have indoor plants without my cats bothering them. We have 3 cats. All indoor right now, but they will become indoor/outdoor cats after Christmas and their updated shots. Right now the cats will either dig up the plants to get to the dirt or they will eat the plant, or both. I have tried giving them plats of cat grass and such hoping they will leave my plants alone but it hasn't worked. Need some fresh ideas here... Will it get better once they can go outside?

 

Thanks!

[*lifeoftheparty*]

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[fairfarmhand]

Electric fencing may be needed. That and hunting. After a few have been shot at/killed, they will be alot more skittish.

 

The cats....can you cover your houseplant dirt with decorative gravel or I think someone else on here used pine cones.

[Dobela]

Thanks for the ideas. I appreciate your heloping me to get out of my mental rut.

 

Our area does not allow for hunting due to proximity of houses, or at least not with a rifle. I will check and see if we can use other methods. My son would be very thrilled though if he could kill a deer in our own yard :) We have goats in the back acre or 2 and the deer still jump those fences, even with electric fence running around it. Since installing the electric fence to keep the goats in we have still seen deer in the pasture area. The electric is about 2ft off the ground (goat belly height LOL). Maybe it would need to be higher for the deer to avoid it???

 

I like the pinecone idea. We have lots of pine in the woods on side so those will be cheap and easy to come by. I do use water and a spray bottle when I am home so the silly cats wait until I leave to destroy and eat our plants.