Herb Garden Renovation: Fighting Deer & Finding Focus

Saturday I decided I was finally going to take the herb bed in hand and get rid of the deer fence netting once and for all. Back in 2021, it was newly refreshed and a gorgeous thing, tidy and orderly, with mulch, and beds awaiting happy new plants!

Then the deer found it. The BSE and Gadgetron came over and we put up fence posts and netting and it looked considerably less attractive. The deer were put off for about a year, and then the tore the netting down. It looked exceedingly bad, but at that time my knees were not the titanium wonders they are now so taking it all apart was daunting.

Until yesterday.

The Ghost of Gardening Past: Tearing Down the Deer Netting

I pulled up all 11 fence posts and cut all of the netting off them. I stacked my fence posts by the garage, and gathered up all the netting and put it in the driveway. Later this week I plan to go out and see what I can salvage of it for putting over hoops in the garden beds.

Relocation Strategy: Mint, Oregano, and the “Mother” Comfrey

While I was out there I decided to take stock of what’s actually growing out there. It isn’t nearly as much as I thought. To wit:

• Comfrey. I dug up the mother plan and I’ll be moving that to my front flower bed. It’s a medicinal and it makes beautiful flowers.
• Mint. That stuff is a pernicious weed, so I plan to sow it heavily in the front berm. It’s my hope that the strong scent will annoy the deer into leaving my daylillies alone.
• Oregano. That is going into a large grow bag so I can drag it into the greenhouse for the winter. I missed my opportunity last year for fresh oregano on pizzas all winter long.
• Lemon balm. That is also going into the front flower bed, also in a grow bag so it can be in the greenhouse this winter. I love the scent of it, and it’s also a medicinal.
• Garlic. I will never, ever, dig up all of the garlic that is out there. I don’t need to buy it ever again, and I’ll go out this fall and dig up enough to store for winter
• Wild raspberry brambles. They will remain. Without that area getting a lot of focus once I dismantle it, I hope they ramble wildly and produce a ton of delicious tiny raspberries.

I pulled up a lot of grass in hopes of encouraging other things heretofore not sprouted to get moving. As things come up, I’ll evaluate whether they stay or go.

I found that two of the four beds are rotting away, so I’ll let that process continue. The two long beds are still looking pretty great, and I will keep them this season. Once I took inventory of what is in there, I found that there isn’t much. My other herbs were in pots that overwintered in the greenhouse. At the end of the season, I’ll re-evaluate my plan, but I suspect that this is the last year for this layout.

Sunday in the Front Berm: Hard Rakes and Bloom Scares

Fast forward 24 hours to Sunday. I focused on the front bed and the berm that slopes to the sidewalk. I do not clean up the berm up in the fall. Birds and other critters enjoy the plant leavings over the winter and I’m lazy. My first order of business was to hard rake the dead stuff. I had a grand plan to gently do this with a hand-held cultivator since I have bulbs blooming. When I took a look this morning I see that the squill has also began blooming, so there was really not going to be any way to avoid flowers. I went at it hammer and tongs and lo and behold, most of the flowers are just fine.

I had a bunch of leftover seeds from years past, and since the soil was roughed up from the raking I just threw them down and wished them luck. I did intentionally heavily seed borage in the berm. Borage is a gorgeous plant that is also edible! It has a nice cucumber-like taste and is lovely in a pitcher of water. I grew it for the first time in 2024 and I am quite enamored of it! It is also a magnet for all manner of pollinators, so I’ll sow it with the strawberries and placing small grow bags of it around my tomatoes. Side benefit? Deer do not like the fuzzy leaves.

The “English Garden” Dream vs. The Deer Reality

I took a walk through the front flower bed. My original plan, way back in the day, was to have an English garden look going on out there, lots of perennials, unkempt but lovely. Enter the deer. I have only yarrow, Rose of Sharon, catmint, aliums, a struggling lilac, and comfrey. I pulled up the grass that was sprouting through the mulch, which took quite a while since last summer was the Broiling Summer Of Neglect here in Michigan. Here’s where I started.

After I tripped over two bags of mulch from couple years back that have just been sitting there, I ordered ten more bags and refreshed the entire bed. Ain’t no half-stepping here. While mulch shopping, I found that paver bricks that are usually .68 are on sale for .25!

I bought 55. Looks like a paver border is happening.

I took my cart to the herb bed and dug up the oregano and the lemon balm and put them in grow bags. I had enough oregano to gift a couple of healthy starts to good people. I brought the lavender, Chinese chives, and the thyme out of the greenhouse, and all of these were placed in the front bed. These strongly scented herbs repel deer, so I’m hoping they will avoid gnawing my Rose of Sharon plants down to twigs. I also planted the mother comfrey I dug up yesterday. The end result was quite pleasing.

Greenhouse Gains: Brassicas and the Porch Pantry

The manual labor done, I spent good time in the greenhouse. I started pots of basil, cilantro, and borage. They will stay in the greenhouse till after the last frost, then they will take up residence on my porch steps. I potted up some oregano and lemon balm and added a small pot of chives, so I’m getting started on my porch pantry. My main pain in the rump here will be the squirrels digging in the pots, so there will be cat hair liberally deployed. Deer leave these herbs alone.

I was happy to see my brassicas the I started last weekend sprouting! I have the tray domed and it’s in the greenhouse, so it’s a greenhouse in the greenhouse. The Brussels sprouts will take all season, so those will go in the back row of one of the new beds. The cabbage and broccoli will do their time and then rotate out until the fall planting.

Another busy weekend, but I got a lot of infrastructure spiffed up. I need to take the backyard in hand next, but that won’t be nearly so involved a process. I’m tired, but satisfied and proud of the work I put into making my home more beautiful. And, in thwarting the deer.

What’s your best ‘secret weapon’ against deer? Let me know in the comments