This week's book review is a book I bought years ago and absolutely loved: "Modern Homesteading" by the "Wranglerstar" family. I've always been a sucker for urban-to-rural migration stories, and this one doesn't fail.
Since I'm not really on social media and don't follow "influencers," I wasn't aware this book was written by, well, influencers. I had never seen their YouTube channel or other social media sites. All I did was read the book ... and the book is excellent. I can see why their YouTube channel is wildly popular.
So yeah, highly recommended.
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For our product review, we're recommending something with which we're intimately familiar, especially after last week's project (fencing the garden). I'm talking about the ultimate way to keep deer at bay, namely heavy-duty plastic deer netting.
We bought rolls of this stuff years ago (part of the project equipment we bought in advance). To be honest, we had never seen this in action and had no particular expectations it was any good. But the reviews were positive, so we took a chance with a single roll. We were so impressed, we ordered several more.
This deer nettng has exceeded our wildest expectations. This stuff is light-weight and flexible, but very strong. It has an added advantage that, once it's in place, it's not visually annoying.
We have used this netting for endless projects, up to and including our most recent one of fencing in the garden. It can be cut to size with scissors, but it's strong enough even to resist elk.
This netting comes in a variety of lengths and sizes. We bought rolls that were 7.5 feet high and 330 feet long, which turned out to be a good choice.
If you're looking for a way to keep deer out of your garden, this is your answer.
To protect our fruit in our little orchard, as they get closer to ripe, I've made panels of PVC pipe covered by deer netting. They're 8' x 3', reinforced in the middle, secured by either zip ties or PVC clamps. I have 18 of them, and it's a stretch to wire 9 together to surround a tree. Even though our orchard is fenced and not used by deer, it's the birds we protect the trees from. We formerly used bird netting for the top 'cap', but after seeing a poor little dessicated bird corpse caught in the bird netting, we decided that deer netting was the way to go. No birds caught, no fruit damaged. Panels protect the fruit from marauding squirrels as well. We painted the PVC green to prolong its life, and store the panels against the fence in the shade most of the year. I keep the trees small by pruning twice a year, and get a decent harvest most years.
ReplyDeletePatrice, having my husband's family come from the fencing industry. We love black for fencing (2x4 or chainlink) since it does become invisible.
ReplyDeleteDebbie in MA