In Praise of Putrescence

At some point, cute, cuddly, doe-eyed wildlife become vermin and a nuisance. 

At SOME point.

For me, it's when they eat all the strawberrry plants.  And the sweet potato plants.  The tops off the blackberries.  Entire hostas.

Unfortunately, the game warden sees things differently.  Deer, for example, would have to destroy acres of crops before they're considered nuisances.  It doesn't matter that they ate 90% of my sweet potatoes and most of my strawberry crop, they're still cute, cuddly wildlife until they reach that acre-mark.

Enter putrefied eggs.

Since we're not allowed to harvest deer out of season, the best option is to deter them.  Jeff bought a product at Lowe's a couple weeks ago and it works surprisingly well.  It's called Liquid Fence and looks like this:  

  It is the most vile smelling product EVER, with the first ingredient being rotten eggs.  Imagine the sulfur smell of rotten eggs + dirty feet + mold + armpit + locker room.  That's about what this stuff smells like.  To put it kindly.  Thankfully, once it dries, it's undetectable by the human nose.  Apparently deer can still smell it and avoid it if at all possible.  To use, simply apply the product to the garden area, around desirable plantings or along the fence line. 

  So far, I haven't had any more damage to my garden.  The one poor hosta that I DIDN'T spray was gnawed to the ground, but eh, it's a hosta.  It will grow back.

Now, what to do about chipmunks???