Deer Eat Tomatoes?

If you are new to vegetable gardening, you certainly don’t want anything to happen to your plant babies and you will want to prevent them from anything that could hurt them, like deer that eats tomato plants for example.

No matter how adorable they might look with those huge eyes, it is highly unlikely that you’ll want to feed the local deer population your tomato plants to eat. Not only do deer eat tomato plants, they also eat a variety of plants, and guess where these plants can mostly be found? The garden, your garden! So the right thing to do would be to protect your garden from a deer invasion.

If you are thinking this only applies to people that live in rural areas, you might want to reconsider that thought as deer can also be seen in an urban setting.

Five Ways to Protect Your Garden from Deer

Deer Repellent Spray

A guaranteed way to prevent deer from eating your tomato plant is to sprat it with a deer repellent. There are ready to use alternatives sold at the market, or you can make your own mix. To do that, you could consider using a vinegar and ammonia spray, hot pepper spray, garlic powder spray, or a spray made of deer predator urine.

The aim is to make ward them off with the smell of the spray, and prevent them from returning.

Grow plants they don’t like

While deer loves to eat your tomato plants, there are some plants they don’t like, and it is with the help of those that you will keep them away from your precious tomatoes. Examples of such include; foxgloves, bee balm, chives, garlic, rosemary, hot pepper, yucca and iris.

Fence your garden

This has also proven to be an effective way to keep the deer away, but only if your fence is very sturdy and about 8 feet tall, or even taller because deer are excellent climbers.

Motion sensor water spray

Install a motion sensor around your garden that sprays a blast of cold water on the deer when it comes too close to your plant. Needless to say, they will not be staying to eat your tomatoes after that.

Ultrasonic devices

You can purchase an ultrasonic device that emits a loud and annoying noise when a deer comes too close to your tomato plants. Deer startles easily so they will take off as soon as the sound goes off. While this is effective in chasing the deer away, it might also disturb you of your home is within close proximity to your garden. If you are sure the shrilling sound will not reach you, then this is a great option for you. Otherwise, try the other options listed above.

On a final note, while deer might be an adorable animal, you are probably not planting tomato plants for them to eat, so to prevent this from happening, you should try some of the options mentioned above, and if done right, you should be able to solve your deer problems.