Aaron von Frank

Thanks for your comment! What makes us a little nervous about recommending things like Palmolive dish soap or Irish Spring soap on plants to deter deer is the bioaccumulation of their chemical constituents in the soil and runoff into nearby waterways (with no water treatment facility in between). You can get an ingredient list for these items, but in the US, companies can just say things like “perfume” or “fragrance” on their ingredients without disclosing everything that’s in it. Many detergents and soaps contain everything from PFAS (forever chemicals) to phthalates, which are pretty terrible for humans and the environment in general. With regular/repeat applications, these chemicals could really build up in the soil around the plants or cause unnecessary pollution, which is concerning even if a person doesn’t intend to eat the plants.

Last year, we also watched another neighbor’s garden get mowed down repeatedly by deer despite being surrounded by and covered in bars of Irish Spring soap, which ultimately ended up melting into their soil.

Since our whole yard is basically a giant edible garden that our family (including a toddler) play in and eat from, we’re extremely cautious about what we use in it, and prefer physical barriers/deterrents when it comes to deer control.

Aaron von Frank

Thanks and best of luck keeping deer away from your property! Yes, lyme disease is a horrible problem – and one that’s getting worse each year. We’ve had some friends contract the disease and it took them years to recover. While deer are a large mammal who can carry both lyme disease and the ticks that spread it, pretty much every other type of mammal can do the same (raccoons, mice, etc). So it’s pretty well impossible to keep every animal out of your yard that could possibly bring ticks with them. One reason we keep backyard/pet ducks is because they’re very effective at finding and eating ticks. It certainly can’t hurt to keep deer off your property since their large size means they could carry more ticks than smaller mammals.

The sheer abundance of deer is a separate but related problem. Deer thrive in human-made “edge” habitat, and without many natural predators around, their numbers can quickly get out of control. (Good review of current vs historical deer populations here: https://www.deerfriendly.com/decline-of-deer-populations/data-history.) Regulated human hunting is a good strategy to maintain optimal deer population size and ecosystem health while also feeding people high quality meat. Hunting in residential areas is tricky though, given the risks.

Aaron von Frank

Thanks for that report, Susan! Our neighbors went through many bars of Irish Spring soap in their garden last summer and their plants still got eaten to nubs. Perhaps grating the soap during application would help. Or perhaps the relative effectiveness has something to do with the specific deer species and/or abundance of other available foliage in the area. Either way, our other concern would be not wanting to have some of the ingredients in Irish Spring soap (specifically the fragrances, color dyes, and salts) in our soil, especially given the concentrations required to potentially repel deer. Quick Google search revealed the following ingredients in Irish Spring: Sodium Laurate/Linoleate/Oleate/Palmitate, Water/Eau, Glycerin, Fragrance/Parfum, Sodium Chloride, Linum Usitatissimum (Linseed) Seed Oil, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Titanium Dioxide, Green 8, Green 3.

Aaron von Frank

It seems like there are multiple factors contributing to the relative efficacy of the fishing line deer deterrent method: 1) making sure you do it correctly as far as line height and location around plants; 2) species of deer involved; 3) abundance of deer/pressure; 4) time of year and how hungry deer are. We (and our neighbors) have had fishing line work for months at a time. So have other people we’ve talked with. On the flip side, we also know people with so many hungry deer in their area that it doesn’t work well or for very long. We also include some other deer deterrent methods for folks in need.

Aaron von Frank

Yay! So glad to hear that, thanks Kady! Fingers crossed the fishing line trick continues to be effective at keeping deer out of your garden.

Aaron von Frank

Oh no! That’s incredibly heartbreaking. We’ve never heard of something like this happening from the fishing line trick. That seems like a freak accident that’s very unlikely to happen, but thank you for letting us (and other readers) know.

Aaron von Frank

Hi Frances! Sorry for any confusion. We provide the test/weight of the fishing line and a purchase link in the article. “15-30 pound test, invisible fishing line to be exact which you may already have at home or you can buy now via Amazon.” Purchase link to the Amazon product we recommended is here: https://amzn.to/3tnS1yZ. Sure hope this helps you with your deer problem!

Aaron von Frank

Thanks for sharing your experience, Ann! Yes, for some deer, fishing line seems to work great. Others, not so much (or not for long), as your experience shows. Perhaps the success comes down to how many other easier food sources the deer have in the area + how many other deer there are competing for the same food sources. Anecdotally, in the case of the people we know who have had success with fishing line as a deer deterrent, there’s a lot of other food sources around + hunters and coyotes in the area that likely keep their populations in check.

Another interesting tidbit: a neighbor down the street from us that we’re good friends with loaded her garden up with bars of Irish Spring soap because someone told her that would keep deer away. Well, the deer didn’t care a bit and have eaten every plant in her garden they like – even plants right next to bars of soap. Now, she’s got piles of half melted Irish Spring soap in her soil, and who knows what’s in that stuff.

Aaron von Frank

Deer can drive a person who grows food a bit crazy. That single apple is going to taste amazing. Fingers crossed for your orchard in future years!

Aaron von Frank

Awesome! So glad to hear this trick worked to keep deer off your hydrangea. Fingers crossed for future years.

Aaron von Frank

Hi Carleen! No tricks per se, but fencing is pretty much the only thing you can use to keep rabbits out of a garden bed. Predators tend to keep their populations in check. In urban areas, outdoor cats really decimate their populations by killing/eating the kits.

Aaron von Frank

Hi Sandi! Not sure how much space you have around your hay bale garden or what your exact setup is. If you have plenty of space, you might want to hang your deer deterring fishing line on stakes 5-10′ outside of the garden. Hang it 3′ above the ground with pretty good tension on the line between each stake. If you don’t have much space and you need to hang the line atop your hay bales, I’d still hang it 3′ above ground or 2′ above your hay bales as far to the exterior of your bales as space allows for. Option 3: combine the first two setups so as to have two lines of defense (pun somewhat intended). Hope this helps and best of luck keeping deer out of your garden!

Aaron

Good luck, Dina!