This summer, I saw an ingenious idea for a way to keep moose and deer from jumping through gates and I'd like to pass it along to you. I learned it from Ed Peck of Secret Garden Greenhouse.
Ed has hung some deer fencing in front of the gate to his raised-bed garden. The fencing was attached to two metal rods and could easily be lifted out of the way in order to gain access into the garden.
I thought that was pretty slick so I did the same thing with our two arbor gates. I cut two rectangles of black plastic deer fencing to fit within the arbor in front of the gate. Then I attached them to two lengths of metal conduit -- which are inexpensive and can be found in the electrical section of home centers -- using black zip-ties.
All I had to do was to set the top conduit on top of the arbor and then angle the bottom conduit so it would be in between vertical portions of the arbor (to keep a critter from just pushing the wire out of the way). If you click on the photo, you can view a larger version of the photo to more easily see the details.
I realize it's not very attractive but my goal has been to keep the deer and moose out of our garden during the fall and winter. And it appears to be working. When we had snow on our lawn a few days ago, my husband Bill noticed moose tracks that went through the front yard, up to the gate and then did a U-turn once the moose saw the barrier. Score one for the gardener!
In the spring, I'll remove the deer-fencing barriers from the gates and hang some wind chimes in the arbor. I've found the local deer and moose don't tend to bother our garden during the warmer months, although I hang the wind chimes since they tend to scare away any persistent deer.
