Deer do eat tomato plants from time to time.
Here’s how to prevent damage to your plants.
Learn how to identify deer damage on tomato plants and how to protect your crop.
Credit:Robert Muckley / Getty Images
Deer and Tomatoes
Vegetable gardens offer a tasty bountyfor both humans and deer.
Plantcompanion vegetables and herbsthat deer rarely browse due to their prickly texture or pungent odor near tomato plants.
These include chives, cucumbers, eggplant,leeks, onions,rosemary,rhubarb, andsage.
If your tomato plant is missing leaves or sporting damaged fruit, deer might be the cause.
Begin by looking for deer tracks around your plants.
Their cloven hoof prints are easy to spot.
Deer-damaged foliage has a rough, jagged edge because deer lack upper incisor teeth.
They bite down on a leaf and pull, leaving behind a ragged remnant.
Leaf damage due to rodents, such as rabbits and chipmunks, has a regular, straight margin.
Deer take a bite out of ripe tomatoes or eat whole fruit, depending on the size.
Peak feeding time is early morning and late evening.
Install a deer fence.
A fence is the best way tokeep deer away from plantsyou don’t want them to eat.
Mosttraditional landscape fenceswont keep out deer.
These large, agile creatures can easily jump a standard 4-foot-tall fence.
Height is key to excluding deer from a large area such as an entire vegetable garden or backyard.
The best deer fence is 8 feet tall.
Many commercial deer fence options are available, but they come with a high price tag.
A well-built and regularly maintained electric fence can also serve as a deer barrier.
Wildlife specialists have found that deer avoid entering small spaces.
The animals perceive the small space as being too risky for fast entry and exit.
Gardeners can use this to their advantage.
Research has shown that deer are regularly deterred by the 16-foot square, leaving the plants growing inside alone.
Hang a bar of soap nearby.
Begin with the right soap for the joban individually wrapped, highly fragrant small bar.
Leave the bar wrapped and drill a small hole through the soap.
If you have several tomato plants, place several bars of soap around the perimeter of the planting.
Spray the soil with a raw egg mixture.
Wildlife specialists have found that a raw egg slurry can effectively repel deer.
Reapply the egg and water mixture after every rain.
Sprinkle the soil with bone meal and blood meal.
Typically used as soil enhancements, blood meal and bone meal have also proven helpful in repelling deer.
Reapply after every rain.
