Re: Deer Damaged Pumpkins

Wash the dried areas with some diluted bleach, let air dry, then spray with the spots with hair spray. This will seal and keep the spots dry. 

Alan R.


-----Original Message-----
From: Errol <errolrw@ultrasys.net>
To: pumpkins@hort.net
Sent: Wed, Aug 25, 2010 7:15 pm
Subject: Re: Deer Damaged Pumpkins


Thanks Bill,

It's is a deer, I have 5 bucks from a young forked buck and all the
way up to a 5-point buck just coming out of velvet and since the
tracks of the damaged pumpkin was 3 1/4" and the other 2 sets of
tracks were about 2 1/2" the older buck I am pretty sure is the
culprit! The deer around here always hang around, a few years ago a
herd camped just outside my front room window during the winter and
you could watch them watch the TV!

I extended the 600 feet 3' higher with a hotwire around the area and
moved one of my dogs by the patch (chained up!) so he will bark at them.

They have eaten some tomato's and a few other items before but have
never touched the pumpkins before though....

And I do have some borax I can put on the wounds on the plant but
since it has scabbed over and isn't soft or oozing I have left it
alone but I was concerned if I should do something with it as a
precautionary measure since I am running out of summer days quickly
here in Colorado, luckily my biggest one he left alone and didn't go
under the covering!

Errol


----------

At 12:46 PM 8/25/2010, you wrote:

For the 1st Year in the last 15 years of growing my pumpkins I've
had a deer decide that they are tasty!

They ate all of my Cinderella and Field pumpkins in one of my
patches but they left my big pumpkins that are planted about a acre
away alone that night.

Then a couple of nights ago they found my big pumpkins and they took
about 8 big bites out of my 2nd largest.

I have taken countermeasures to protect the pumpkins left just short
of putting the 1 big buck out of the 5 that I think is the culprit
in the freezer.

The bites have scabbed over and don't appear to be going soft but I
was wondering if I should put something on the bite chunk spots just
in case to protect them or just watch it closely!

I do have a few cuke beetles but they haven't bothered my plants and
I have been hand picking them off but the deer are a different story.

Also I am very reserved on spraying my pumpkins because at the end
of the year I recycle my pumpkins by goats and poultry which create
the manure for the garden! =-)

Thanks!

Errol

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS



__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus
signature database 5397 (20100825) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

http://www.eset.com


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Pumpkin-growing archives: http://www.hort.net/lists/pumpkins/
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE PUMPKINS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index