The Ultimate Garden Deer Fence!

When we moved here everyone told us that to have a garden and fruit trees, we HAVE to put up fencing to keep the deer out.  After a lot of research and talking with other gardeners, we decided to put up 5 ft. wire fencing around the entire perimeter of our garden with electric fence extending another 3 feet above that. The berry bushes outside the garden only have 2 strands of electric fencing about 3 feet tall and surprisingly the deer don't jump it.  I am happy to report that after 2 growing seasons, we have not had ANY deer damage.

We use a 30 mile solar electric charger.  This charger is awesome!  It has always kept a charge and you can hear a slight audible click so you know when it's pulsing.  A few times we have woke up in the middle of the night because a slug slimed its way between the charger housing and the terminal which shorted out the charger.  (This sounds bad, but really the slug was fried on the electric wire while the charger ticked on - though it did take Jon a few midnight runs out to the garden to see what was going on.).  We disconnect the solar charger in the winter and store it inside.

Using zip ties, fiberglass poles were attached to the fence posts and extended another 3 feet above the regular wire fence.  Two strings of electric fencing were attached to the fiberglass posts.  

We put in 3, 8 foot grounding rods for the charger.  In hindsight we could have probably used just one.  A word of advice when putting these in, make sure they are in a location that won't be in your way!

In the foreground of the picture you can see the deer damage on the blackberry canes outside the electric fence and the untouched canes on the inside of the fence.