How to Make a Modern Deer Fence for Your Garden

Anyone who has a garden knows how frustrating it is to work day in and day out only to find that deer have eaten your tomatoes, nibbled on the squash and peas or ripped the bark off the trees.

Certainly, we’ve tried all sorts of methods to deter the deer, from human hair to Irish Spring soap, but to no avail.

After much research we decided that the best method would be to install deer fencing to enclose the garden.

When you garden in deer country, growing vegetables can be a real challenge.

To keep out high-jumping deer, many gardeners surround their crops with tall fences that have the look of a maximum-security prison.

However we wanted to keep our beautiful views as well as look good from the street.

 Not only did it turn out beautiful, but we have succeeded in keeping the deer out of our vegetable garden! 

How Tall Should a Deer Fence Be?

After trying many methods that claim to keep the deer out of our vegetable garden, last year we installed a fence around the perimeter of our garden.

It was a temporary fence, which was only 5 feet tall.

Clearly, it did not work!

They were still having a feast nightly in my garden.

Apparently deer can easily jump a 5 to 6 foot fence. To really keep the deer out, we would need an 8 foot fence.

With this in mind, I began to come up with our design.

Not only must it keep the deer out, but also it had to look good!

What You’ll Need to Build a Deer Fence

To build your own deer fence you need some basic tool like a saw, drill, angle grinder and level.

We build our deer fence with pressure treated lumber and galvanized hog wire panels for durability, but you could also use cedar or redwood.

Determine Measurements

The first step is to plan how many linear feet of deer fencing you will need.

Plan post layout and determine how many posts you will need.

As you plan, consider gates as well.

We determined we would like 2 gates for our deer fence, one to enter from the backyard and one from the front yard.

Each section of fence will require 6 – 2×4 boards one for the footer, one for the top rail and the other 4 will be ripped down to enclose the 4 sides of the hog panels.

Most of these materials we picked up at our local Home Depot.

However, we purchased the hog wire panel was purchased from Tractor Supply Co.

It was considerable cheaper than the big box home improvement stores.

The Trellis

To complete our 8 foot height requirement for our deer fence we decided to install a trellis.

Not only would this create that 8 foot barrier for the deer, but it also adds beauty to the fence.

In addition, I have been wanting a place to grow wisteria and this will provide the perfect trellis for it. 

To create the trellis we install 2×6 boards on each side of the 4×4 posts.