How to Keep the Deer From Eating Your Earthbox Container Plants

Here in Southern California, those of us Earthboxers that have our gardens set up in mule deer country know the pain: browsing deer keep your backyard on their agenda planners, as were you giving out fine dining loyalty rewards points. Of course this isn’t limited to our area, nor to mule deer, and thus when I was visiting family on the east coast, whose property butts up against several acres of virgin Appalachian forest, I happened to observe their method of keeping the deer out of their many Earthbox containers around their yard. They’ve been Earthboxing since the 1990’s and organic gardening on this same plot of land since the 1970’s. Needless to say their technique has been tried for several years with good results, i.e. no more free trips to Hawaii on rewards points for their neighborly deer.

What’s interesting enough for me to write this article about their method of protecting their plants from deer (or other critters as well) is that it’s relatively cheap to do, and requires little skill or effort to accomplish. As the pictures below will show, this is a barrier method using both round and folding square tomato cages, twist-ties or light gauge twist-able wire, plastic (or steel) green garden stakes, and some semi-rigid, plastic, two dimensional mesh netting.

Generally the cages and the stakes naturally build the structures around the plants, based on the type of plant in question. For example, peppers will have a smaller foliage canopy than tomatoes do, and thus the structures can often be affixed inside the Earthbox container soil for the former, as they advance to maturity, where as the latter will need more space during their development, and so more is afforded by using the surrounding ground as the medium in which the structures are pinned.

These structures need not be soundly impenetrable, at least in the case of the discouragement of deer, as deer are browsers and not grazers, and aren’t willing to apply a Houdinian effort into grabbing your tender, young plants. The only caveat here is if your plants are the only things around that are edible, then the deer might muster more effort into defeating your netting efforts. In that case you would not be wrong in deploying secondary or tertiary methods of discouragement, along the lines of sprays, creating barriers with plants that are distasteful to deer (for Southern California, Rosemary bushes may be a solution, as they can also be used as garden herbs), or utilizing sacrificial plants that are irresistible to deer (wedgeleaf ceanothus, aka Buckbrush may also work for So Cal) on another section of your property as a means of distraction, and then graduating up to more expensive and effortful solutions such as dedicated garden enclosures, fencing, large rock garden based landscaping, etc. Such goes beyond the discussion here.

Another thing to note regarding the upper left picture above – the one holding the tomato which has the netting all around the Earthbox – is that the two ends of the netting wrap around the container and meet near the corner where the watering tube is located; this format allows one to peel back those two ends to put a watering can spout or garden hose into the tube, to fill up the container.

Tip: Use a non-toxic garden hose that reduces your exposure to lead and other toxins when filling your Earthboxes. I’ve been using this drinking water safe, Water Right PSH2-050-MG Hose 500 Series hose, as it’s from the same company whose similar hose was rated one of the ‘Best Products’ to use in a chemical study of 32 different garden hoses, which tested for lead, cadmium, phthalates, bromine, PVC plastic, antimony, and tin.

The pictures may be a bit hard to see, concerting the minutia of the cage assemblies and netting so I’ve also made a small video of some of them, which also includes my dad putting the final touches on one he’s setting up for the season:

Towards the end of the video, I travel down into the woods behind my family’s house to show where the deer are coming from, and at the very end there’s another critter proofing garden tip for growing ramps in Appalachia – grow them inside cinder blocks with Gardener’s Supply Chicken Wire Cloches over them.

Tomato Cage Specs

Let’s now try to figure out the dimensions of the tomato cage you’d need to set one of these inside an original Earthbox container. The manufacture states the Earthbox is 29″L x 13.5″W x 11″H in dimension. You probably want the ‘long’ points on your diamond shaped tomato cage to span 29″ – 4″ = 25″ from point to point, as you don’t want the cage’s feet to sink down into the outer edges of the container, only to meet its slanted walls half way down, and thus not fit all the way into the grow media. I’d probably knock of an inch on each side of the ‘short’ points, with regard to the 13.5″ width of the container, and thus we’d need a dimension inside 13.5″ – 2″ = 11.5″ from point to point. Now it’s just a matter of some basic geometry to figure out your cage dimensions that will work for the Earthbox:

Optimally you’re looking for a cage where the length of the sides is 13.76″ (c = hypotenuse in the picture above) but I’m not sure that particular dimension exists. I was able to find a foldable one on Amazon that has 13″ sides and is 40″ tall: Cedar Ridge Square Folding Plant Cages.

As far as the Earthbox Root and Veg. size containers go, all you need is a standard round cage from Home Depot, Lowe’s or the like.

And concerning the left upper picture at the front of the article, where there are tomato cage panels running along the outside perimeter of the Earthbox, and held in place by garden stakes and twist-able wire, it many be easier to just use some cattle panel or hardware cloth bent into a rectangle to make a custom barrier. Just make sure the rectangular squares are large enough to accommodate you plant. Otherwise it looks as though you’d need two, 3-sided tomato cages with 15″ panels that can be joined together in the middle of the long sides of the container.

Plastic Mesh Netting Specs

The mesh netting should be a bit rigid to hold its shape when wrapped around your cages, with small enough holes that a deer muzzle can’t penetrate through, whilst concomitantly owning thin enough material that light can freely enter, and not shade your plants. I’d strongly recommend a 4 foot tall mesh, which you can cut down to 3 feet in instances where your Earthbox is elevated significantly off the ground (see middle and right upper pictures at the front of the article).

Something like this Houseables Dog Fence, Garden Fencing, 4’ x 50’ would do the trick.

Garden Stake Specs

There’s nothing unique to report on the garden stakes needed for these deer barriers. Shoot for 5 foot tall ones for a barrier as shown in the upper left picture at the front of the article, and even taller ones for a project similar to the upper right picture. There are ones on Amazon or your local Home Depot or Lowe’s (or nursery).

Garden Wire Specs

Same deal with the garden wire. I found some with a plastic coating called Soft Plant Wire, 65.6′ Reusable Rubber Twist Ties Heavy Duty Garden Wire for Plants on Amazon. That should work for tying cages together or to the garden stakes or mesh.

This article is part of an ongoing series about Earthbox container gardening as part of the LIVE articles on how to use the California outdoors on this site. I’ll leave links below to similar, Earthbox related articles if you’re interested in getting good results from backyard gardening with minimal effort:

How to Use an Earthbox Container

How to Add Drip Irrigation to an Earthbox Garden