Even if deer don't eat alliums they walk through the garden and poke deep holes in the soil, which will do a job on your onions and garlic. for the cheap, get some 7ft high plastic deer netting. Rolls are 100 or 110 ft long for about $20. I use cut sapling trunks tied onto metal T posts to hold it up (because my garden is next to the woods), but 2x2s would work as well. Also get a live trap for racoons if growing corn.

Unfortunately, even the "lists" aren't absolute. Alliums appear on almost every deer and rodent proof list of ornamental bulbs, but I had a vole take out about $500 worth of Globemaster allium bulbs a year ago in the spring.

In my garden, deer haven't bothered with eggplants, potatoes, and other solanums EXCEPT tomatoes, but your mileage may vary, as they say.

Concur; They leave squash, Irish potatoes, Eggplant alone for me, but they do a number on most of the other veggies. Constant war. BUT if they are hungry they will eat most anything. Another drought this year and they are eating okra, which they normally don't bother.

It really is hard to predict, because their individual tastes apparently vary to much. Okra, those few years it actually tries to grow here, is one of the first things, along with soybeans and sweet potato foliage, that they attack.

IME most folks serious about it put up fencing. If I lived in deer country with woods out the back door I'd bury hardware cloth around the perimeter at the same time I put up deer fence. Interesting designs in the San Juan Islands and in Puget Sound islands is they double the fencing leaving a ~4inch gap (width of the post) and fill gap with hay/straw for a wind barrier & eventually you can shove little plants & flowers in there.

Dan

They eat everything, but onions & they walk on them.
They leave the Cole plant be, some winters.

They don't like anything with a strong scent...herbs like lavender and rosemary, chives, onions and garlic(garlic is used in many deer "repellents"). They also don't like things with fuzzy and/or prickly leaves. They decimated most of my container peppers last year, but left my Rocoto peppers alone as they have fuzzy leaves. I grew a zucchini that had rounder, softer leaves last year and they munched on that one, but the previous year the type I grew had stiffer and pointier leaves and it was sampled early then left alone. This year I'm trying Velvet Red cherry tomato(extra fuzzy leaves)with Borage(fuzzy prickly leaves)on either side of it as an experiment. There's actually one particular doe that will walk right up to our doorstep to see what I have growing in my containers...and she has a taste for tomatoes...therefor shows her youngun' where the goods are(sigh). We're in the unfortunate position of being right next to a vacant wooded lot in this rural town and the deer use that lot to get to the lake after perusing everyone's gardens. You can see them strolling down the middle of the street during the wee hours. There's also someone a half block away that feeds them. I guess they like salad with their grains.

The deer in our area are not hungry, just curious, so they do a lot less damage than in many other places. That being said, they usually leave alone anything planted against the house or a fence...if it's surrounded by lavender, marigolds, cosmos, zinnias, daffodils, bee balm or spearmint.

Where I don't have a fence, I put butterfly bushes or lilacs behind the garden area and that tends to keep them out, too. This only works for about five feet in front of the shrubs and you still have to surround the veggies (or roses, in my case) with plants they don't like. Coneflowers, daisies, coral bells, salvia, veronica, peonies, columbine, sweet woodruff, pansies, star jasmine and white petunias don't seem to interest them either.

In the veggie areas, I plant zinnias, marigolds, cosmos, radishes and nasturtiums around the beans, cabbage, broccoli and lettuce. Tomatoes don't interest them, but a baby did bite off the top of one last year and then spit it out, next to the plant. They also tried a coneflower and a butterfly bush, before figuring out it didn't taste good. Squash, melons and sunflowers were also left alone for the most part.

If you don't want to add a fence (I didn't because we love our view and the garden is really secondary) then companion planting may be your best alternative. If we ever decide to 'get serious' about growing a large vegetable garden, then I'd fence that entire area with deer fencing.

Oh, and as for stepping on plants...the deer here are apparently well behaved, because there have been very few footprints in the garden beds. We do have wide grass paths between each bed, which seems to keep the kids and the deer out of the flowers! LOL

I hope things work out with your mom's garden :)

So load your deer in a trailer and send them to Washington State for charm school. ;)

I'd like to be able to load all of my deer into a trailer and send them on a little voyage where they'd come back in freezer packs and as sausages.

The Blacktail deer in W WA are dainty little things compared to the big Whitetails stompin' around these here parts. It took me by surprise when we moved out here. I've tried to "shoo" them away from my plants and they just snort at me so I keep my distance(but if I jump up and wave my arms, they will trot away eventually).

The only way I can garden is in cedar boxes. Altogether now, I have 9 of them, filled with all of the veggies we normally eat. Our back yard faces a "preserve" that carries a lot of hungry creatures.

Many folks - with small back yards here in So. Cal., are finding this type of gardening to be suitable for suburbia-type living, and the results aren't bad.

The boxes are made of cedar boards - 1 x 6's stacked, to make a foot tall enclosure, without a bottom. Hardware cloth is tacked to the bottom, to prevent burrowing critters. The boxes are approximately 6 ft. long x 3 ft. wide, for easy access..

These boxes were begun almost 10 years ago, and have worked well over that length of time, keeping out raccoons, skunks, cats, etc. We don't have deer but those listed can do as much damage. Nothing penetrates the hardware bottoms - such as gophers, moles, voles, etc.

I built some 1 in. PVC pipe cages - about 3 ft tall, - sized to fit half of the box, and wrapped chicken wire around them. A piece of chicken wire is sometimes placed over the top, to keep out birds. One cage fits into one half of the box, with 2 to a box. They are light weight - moving easily when needed.

The initial outlay may be a bit expensive - and require a bit of dexterity, but if you are serious about harvesting your crops, it proves well worth the minimal cost and/or effort.

My fruit trees are another matter -- but I'm working with mylar balloons and old computer disks, tied to trees, for scare purposes. So far, we have been able to eat ALL of our apples - it seems to work somewhat for birds also. The balloons bob and weave with every little breeze, and CD's turn and shoot flashes of light. So far, so good. I'm optimistic that I can harvest ALL of my apricots and perhaps almonds (squirrels) this year.

Hope this helps. I know borage works as mentioned above for smaller critters. But I think the cages - mentioned above will keep out most everything, except small mice, snails, and chewing insects.

Just my 2 c's.

Bejay

I live in the Kansas City area and the deer around here are in outrageous numbers. Not only do they eat vegetable gardens they also dine on suburban landscape, especially hostas and many shrubs. I have 20 acres and much of it is wooded on the west end of the Kansas side of Kansas City and the deer chew on my fruit trees. They will eat tomato plants some years and other years they won't touch them. They have never bothered my pepper or eggplants. They will eat cucumber and watermelon leaves but they won't eat squash plants. The seem to ignore all my cole crops. Cover your purslane if you grow it, they eat it to the nubs. I have been using 7 foot deer netting with tin piepans and silver tin strips tied to it. These blow in the air and make noises and flashes the deer don't like. This has kept my corn and beans safe from them as they will eat both at the young stage. I haven't had a problem with racoons yet. The deer really get pissed with me at dusk when I'm out there working. I can hear them snorting angrily in the woods. They want to come up and dine but that man is out there! At first I didn't know what the noise was and then I saw them darting around amongst the trees. There are no natural predators for them anymore and they are overpopulating the woods in and around the city. We have had several deer sitings within walking distance of downtown Kansas City. With the river closeby and large sections of woods in the city, it really isn't surprising. But it is becoming a huge problem.

Actually, I live five miles from Idaho, but charm school is a good idea :)

While we don't have problems with the deer (living on the farm) closer to town, they do. Recent build up from housing developments have driven many of the deer out of their natural feeding areas.

dont have deer here but squirrel population here in cityburbs is ridiculous. Birds are ever present. DAng rabbits hide everywhere. Unfortunately every type of slug and other insect s that eat my veggies. Wild cats that use my mulched garden as their litter box. some UNGARDENERS give peanut to the TREE RATS so they are everywhere burying stuff all day long.
There are more critters here that bother me than our other home in BFC
Thanks for letting me vent. I should be out watering etc but it is so ##### hot here in KY.
Venting again
Jean
Jean

Just keep a wide border of hostas, lilies, roses, etc Round the edge of the garden - they'll be so busy without he ornamentals they'll ignore the edibles!

Just kidding - they'll eat anything and everything in my neck of the NoVA 'burbs that isn't behind a 6' fence, because most of their habitat was turned into said 'burbs. They really do seem to prefer my ornamentals to the edibles that creep over the fence, though, except for the ripe fruit on the lowest (in other words, would be easiest for me to harvest if they didn't eat it first!) peach, pear and plum branches.

I know I am a little late to the party but, WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU PEOPLE!!! This was a simple question and it looks like most everyone danced around it. The answer is no, there are no real surefire vegetables that the critters wont eat! I apologize for the rest of the comments.

You just joined GW to post on a 6 year old thread and blast everyone else in the process?

I personally agree with the others that there are some things that won't be bothered IME but there are a wide range of critters in the world so it probably depends on where you live, what animals you have to contend with, and the availability of wild food sources. In drought years or when there is heavy snow cover deer may eat just about anything but in normal conditions they pretty much leave my unfenced gardens alone (unless I grow sweet corn that draws them in and then they eat the corn and just about everything else).

Wow, still dancing!

No not dancing, I'm right! You really know how to make an entrance don't you?

Thank you! Yes I do know how to make an entrance!

Alright Jack, I'll bite. Yes I did "just join" but you are incorrect in assuming I "just joined to comment on a 6 year old thread". I joined to remark on how most, if not all of these comments dances around the question. I will reiterate, it was a simple question. Most, if not all of the responses danced around the answer. To further clarify for you, I also joined to offer a definitive answer to a VERY specific question. The question was not, should I relocate my garden or should I put up a six foot fence. Or how much a roll of plastic netting costs or if voles will eat $500 worth of bulbs or if buried hardware cloth will fend off deer... I could keep going but by your response to my comment, I have a feeling that it is very important to you and your personality to be correct.

Let it be known that as of now you have been DEEMED CORRECT! I hope that makes you feel better.

I did a search for "are there any vegetables that critters will not eat" and this was the first thing that popped up. Yay for houzz, their SEO engineer is doing their job. Ya know, I could have said many things such as the critters didn't eat my jalapenos but they did eat my cherry tomatoes. I could have said to plant marigolds to discourage the deer and I could have suggested fences and raised beds. But when I did MY search I didn't want any suggestions of what to do to fend off critters. In fact I love my critters but I love my vegies too. So, I know I will not change the world, I know that many are just trying to help but it just drives me a little crazier when people think they are helping when indeed they are dancing. There is a time to dance and this wasn't it!

You'll be okay...

OK jenny. I hope you feel better now. I'm sure the OP appreciates your very useful advice.

Everyone...don't bother planting anything because the critters will eat it!

Yeah THAT was the "OP" question, "Should I bother planting anything?"...

Plant rocks. It works! Yeah, they're not really "veggies", and they don't grow, but they're nice to look at, if you get the right ones. Paint them green, or red, or whatever. Highly freeze-tolerant, unaffected by disease, and they don't even need much water! If you grind them up, in principle they are edible, though not very tasty or nutritious. I think the deer know that ...

No dancing here.

What is a question?

Let’s break it down shall we?

{I'm
looking to plant some additional things in my Mom's garden but her backyard is
basically woods and deer and who knows what else stroll in and will likely
chomp on what ever looks good that they can reach.

I'm
thinking onion and garlic would probably not be favored by critters, anything
else that they wouldn't like? That I can put in the areas they'd be most likely
reach?

Thanks,

Scott}

The
first paragraph is a statement (and slightly a run-on sentence), there is no question and it sets up the
inquiry.

The
first sentence of the second paragraph outlines what he (Scott) is “thinking”
he thinks he will have success with, (onions and garlic) and then it transforms
into a question, “anything else that they (the critters) wouldn’t like?” He finishes with another very specific
question. “That I can put in the areas they'd be most likely reach?” In this sentence he is suggesting that he is
not willing or at least interested in fencing, raising or fending.

The question in short: Is there anything that the critters wouldn’t
like?

What many are not
considering is, is his mother financially capable investing in a more
established environment for gardening? Or
is she capable of climbing into a caged in area and so-on. None of these issues were part of the inquiry.
There are many things we do not know
about Scott and his mother, but we do know one thing for sure. Scott specifically wanted to know, is there “anything
else that they wouldn't like?”

I know, this is pretty tough
stuff and I shouldn’t have been that hard on yours and the other fine comments. Good luck in the future and if you ever need
someone to break down more paragraphs and sentences and comments you can call upon
me Jack!

Dan! I never thought of that! You are the best!

Dan - Just adding a little Tobasco makes anything edible!

Jenny - why did you do a search for "are there any vegetables that critters will not eat" when you already knew the answer was no?

Well Jack, you are wrong, again! I did not "do a search for 'are there any vegetables that critters will not eat' when you already knew the answer was no". You see, after I finished reading all of these wonderful and informative comments, I did further research and LEARNED (because I am still capable of admitting I don't know everything) that deer/critters in one area will eat some things while deer/critters in other areas eat other things and that most vegetables will ultimately be subject to deer/critter consumption. But you have to admit you have a way of going off topic.

At this juncture I have to pause my intellectual prowess to do things of a surely lesser importance. So if there are any further pithy quips that need addressed, I may or may not return as I have also become quite bored. The best to you Jack!

OK bye bye

Bye, Felicia.

This is an...interesting thread.

The gift that keeps on givin' ;-)

Say how you can help or you are wasting our time.

Example: I have found that white tail deer do not like rosemary plants or some marigolds. I think it is the strong oder they put out.