fence

Of course this area is just filled with deer. SO, our first work day was to set up an electric fence.

We used a 3-dimensional method, where three electric tapes are strung on two different fence spaced 3 feet apart. The outermost fence is a short one with tape at 30 inches high, the inner fence has tape at 5 ft and about 8 inches. This fence works well because deer have poor depth perception and the multiple bands of tape at different heights and depths confuses them. Along with the electric shock, this keeps them out of the field.

We have about a 10 minute walk along a conservation trail and through another field. A good deal of our fence project was just transporting materials. Eighty metal fence posts are heavy!

We fenced off a 100 by 100 ft square pretty much in the middle of the large field. Our plan is to use this area to grow crops, moving it’s location year-year and will keep the rest of the field under cover crops.