Do deer eat cabbage

Do deer eat cabbage? When trying to protect your garden against deer, questions like this might come to mind. In this article, we will talk about the weird relationship between cabbage and deer feeding habits.

Gardeners can use deer-resistant vegetables to help reduce the amount of deer damage in their gardens. So, what kind of vegetables do you choose? Do deer eat cabbage?

Adaptive palate

Before selecting any number of plants as deer resistant, you must realize that the deer can adapt its pal-ate to any situation. What’s more, they can take a bite out of everything and sometimes spit out what they consider unpalatable. However, the result is woeful damage for the gardener. Plants considered deer resistant, together can become palatable food sources in the future. Therefore, all plants are only slightly resistant, and some can offer a bit more.

Cabbage and deer feeding habits

Now to the question—do deer eat cabbage? Unfortunately, Deer love cabbage, and they can eat up to 10 pounds of food in a single day. They can equally eat other cabbage family members, including beans, cauliflower, broccoli, and lettuce, causing grievous damage. All parts of the cabbage plant—leaves, buds, and the fruit- are highly attractive to the deer. Therefore, you need to consider using other plants to protect your cabbage garden from being eaten. Great examples are cucumber and rhubarb plants; their leaves are highly toxic to deer. You can also use plants in the nightshade family, such as eggplant, potatoes, and tomatoes, to keep them away. If you want to plant cabbage alone, you can also consider planing ornamental plants. Deer do not eat many ornamental plants, and ornamental cabbage is one of them.

Implementing barriers

You can use repellents besides plants to keep deer away from your gardens, but we recommend in-stalling a fence. Sure, fences are not attractive, but they can help you keep them away for good. How-ever, when installing a fence, think about how close some plants can grow over the wall. It is also recommended that you install an 8-inch tall fence or two parallel fences of 5-6 inches and placed two inches apart. You can also use an 8-inch fence that is slanted a bit outward. This will ensure that the deer never attempts to jump over a wall when it cannot see where it lands.

Concluding thoughts

Deer eat many vegetables, and cabbage is one of them (except ornamental cabbage). Therefore, you must consider different forms of protection for your plant by deer proofing your gardens. However, always remember that no one solution can completely deal with deer issues. To combat them, you need to combine different methods to achieve reliable protection against them. Fencing, deer repellent, and planting deer-resistant plants at the edge of your garden can provide adequate protection. You can equally consider using other methods occasionally (scare tactics, noise deterrents) to keep the deer from becoming too familiar with your practices. In the end, patience and dedication can help you keep deer away from your precious cabbage.

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