I’m a little bit surprised I haven’t had much issues with deer yet. My thornless are very close to the house though. I suppose the deer are too busy decimating my garden lol. I have had them tip the growing primocanes, but they usually do so near the height I would’ve tipped them anyway.
Hey! Get some motion sensor solar lights or motion sensor water sprayers for your deer issue.
I threw away apples on the side of my house for deer and they would pick them up in the morning. I recently put in motion sensored lights and lately, nothing is being touched within their vicinity. And no new deer tracks!
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It is weird here. Deer will not come on our property. But walk a few feet into the brush and you find their droppings and scrapes. They fear the dogs. The neighbor gets 2-3 deer every year there. Bunnies and our own goats are the mortal enemies here.
Unfortunately in our current location we have some very contrary neighbors and have had to pen our dogs when we aren’t outside with them. Definitely has taken a toll on the garden. It’s sad. The one neighbor is so mentally disturbed that the local law enforcement would rather harass us than inform her of what the law actually says in our county. Guess it’s easier to bully an agreeable person than answer endless calls from a nut job. I could give many stories about various law enforcement agencies called by her for various reasons, but that’s not the point of this thread. I will not miss her at all when we move to the new spot. Dogs sure will be happy too. They have a heck of a large pen, but nothing beats roaming free.
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Ours are in large pens with the goats save one. We let him run when we are out. But nothing intimidates the rabbits. As soon as the dog is out of sight they are making their moves. Going to have to move to rabbit hunting soon as I refuse to cage all the stooling rootstock.
That’s similar to how we’ve done our dogs, they’re in a .25 ac or so run along with the laying hens. I guess our deer are smart enough to realize the penned dogs can’t reach them lol. One garden spot is right across the driveway from the dog/chicken run too! Of course it’s also possible my lab is just too lazy to patrol past dark and doesn’t visit that side of his run.
I have a prime ark 45 that I plan to plant in the spring. It’s supposed to be pretty erect and it does have thorns. I can’t comment on taste tho.
I’m probably going to get a Kiowa to go with it. (The thorns help with all the animals here, somewhat)
Are you planning to trellis or not? I’m feeling a little silly going to as much trouble as I did with triple crown after reading the post linked above. Her triple crown look a lot simpler than mine.
I think I’ll probably do a row of untrellised triple crown beside them this spring for comparison.
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No those look fine. Here we have been avoiding poles where possible because they have gotten proud on the poles lately.
I think prices are probably elevated everywhere. If you look close you’ll see I actually used 2x4 for the moving arms instead of 4x4. Time will tell if that’s a mistake. The stationary posts are 4x4.
I am looking forward to testing out the rotating trellis even if it may be more work than it’s worth. Supposedly if all goes well I’ll have no sunscald and be able to pick all the fruit on the shady north side.
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