Deer Garden Deterrent Tip: Cayenne Pepper

cayenne-pepper-pic Our neighborhood backs to a state park, which we LOVE almost all the time. However, when it comes to having some color out there in our gardens, the critters that reside IN that park give us quite a bit of trouble. Our biggest offenders: squirrels and deer, with the latter being the worst. One night of deer in my gardens, and they’ve done a devastating amount of damage. We’ve found they’re not above walking right up to our front door and eating out of our planters on the front step. Any day I do planting, I can count on seeing suspicious hoofprints all around the area the following morning.

So I’ve quickly learned to buy only those plants that deer “tend to avoid” (so labeled at the local big box). And I look for Maryland native plants, figuring anything that’s survived to become a native staple must have a decent recovery plan for being munched by these hungry beasts.

Repelling Deer with Pepper

But even with these concessions, we still have problems at lean times–times when the greenest things in the neighborhood are what’s growing in my beds. So this year, I’ve brought in the newest weapon of defense: cayenne pepper.

For the time being, I’m running out after every rain and sprinkling cayenne on all my baby plants. Liberally. So, yes, they and the surrounding mulch have an orange glow.

BUT… they haven’t been touched since I’ve started doing it. My long-term plan is to ease up on intensity down the road. I’m hoping the deer “learn” that it stinks to come sniffing around in my yard and that my plants don’t taste right. At the very least, they aren’t bringing their Verizon-network equivalent into our yard. The bleeding has stopped, which is good considering how much it costs to re-plant whole beds.

And all for $4 for a 14 oz. shaker of cayenne at Sams Club that I expect to last me through this year!

(photo: samsclub.com, the place where we buy McCormick’s Cayenne Pepper).