Perhaps....and it depends on how hungry the deer are...asparagus, rhubarb, garlic. Everything else is pretty much fair game (no pun intended).

I agree with Annie. I don't know about rhubarb and asparagus, but I have some garlic and onions planted outside the garden fence and the cows have muched them down. I know deer eat different things than cattle, but if the cattle eat them I'd bet the deer would too. Can you fence it 6 or 8 feet high? That's about the ONLY thing that REALLY works to keep deer out.

I knew someone who planted things like lantana and rosemary around the perimeter of his veggie patch. Deer are browsers, so once they got a whiff of the not-so-tasty things on the outside, they just meandered on off. This only worked when there was plenty of other things for them to eat outside the garden ~ if they're hungry, they'll jump the rosemary, et al, and much on your veggies in a heartbeat. Along with the above, he sprayed everything inside with one of those bitter sprays. He was diligent about it. After a while, they learned that that spot didn't have tasty things, avoided it and he didn't have to spray much if at all again that year. But he had to do this again every year in spring to teach the yearlings.

You could also set up a deer blind real close and get veggies AND meat from your garden. ;)

All that is just too much work for me, so if I didn't have BIG dogs to run the deer off, I'd just build a fence one year and call it good. ;)

Use all the ideas above and add on to it. Deer are leary of the color white. The danger sign is the flash of a white tail. A white rope around the garden at 3 1/2 or 4 feet off the ground. I have raised bed with 10' white pvc hoops to hold the plastic and row covers. They won't put their heads through the hoops. Stick some rods in the ground and tie white kitchen bags over the rods so they can flap in the wind. Old CD disks will flash white in the dark also. Move these around. Dog hair from a groomers', pieces of Dial soap in the toe of a sock. Go the the sports store and get bobcat urine or another preditor. It's expensive but if you need to get serious that's the way to go.

In my experience, deer do not eat garlic or onions; not a bite while absolutely everything else right by them is gobbled.

Last summer my deer-infested field produced 400 lbs of onions but not a single potatoe from 50lbs planted.

We always just put hay bales and a water trough out about 30 feet from the garden. They never touched the garden at all. Same with rabbits. Planted a row of lettuce all the way around the garden. They ate that and stayed away from the veggies. Maybe I was just lucky. Don't know what the cost of hay is in your area, but in mine it was pretty cheap, and I could barter with a guy down the road who grew it, so it was a good alternative.

Inside my garden there is a huge bed of lettuce. The rabbits stay away from that and chow down on broccoli and savoy cabbage. Go figure!

For deer I have a 6 foot fence. For a larger garden or where deer are bigger you might need 8 feet. It's not that much work to put up fencing on metal posts and not that expensive.

You could try a border of "stinky" stuff like wormwood, feverfew, marigolds, and garlic. Maybe tansy and rue.

I hope they solved the problem by now :)

I never have had deer eat tomato plants. They eat just about everything else though. This year I put up a temporary electric fence. Works like a charm! No deer have been inside my garden this year for the first time ever.
Stan

I make egg shell potpourri baggies and hang them around my garden perimeter at nose height to deer. They hate the smell of egg shells. I've been saving my egg shells ever since I read that they disliked the odor. It works really well.

In the suburbs deer love tomato plants.

I saw a deer prevention system that shoots a stream of water when they come near.

Last summer the deer enjoyed everything in my garden except the kale. I had my lettuce in a separate place in a ground level planter & they didn't touch it. This year we are putting up a high fence so we have a good crop.

I supplement feed deer regularly. I have found that deer as a whole do not like ASPARAGUS, ONIONS or HOT PEPPERS like JALEPENOS. They will eat regular peppers although its not on the top of their list. I have experimented with many fruits and veggies and I have found that they are somewhat discriminating eaters. Some deer like strawberries, etc. while others won't eat them. Most don't prefer cauliflower if there are other options. Pregnant deer in their later term will be the least discriminating eaters. They ALL love corn, even the fawns once they've reached a certain age but still have their spots, guessing about 2-3 months old. Most other fruit and veggies they eat.

Note on the fencing. I just read an article that says if you put up a deer fence it should be 8 FEET HIGH not 6 feet as the deer can get tangled up in it trying to clear it, possibly with a broken leg and die. Sadly, I found this to be true. We have a fence about this height put up around some land we had on a hill near a busy road. The fence was more for boundary purposes but I didn't think the deer would even try to jump it as it looked too tall to me and it was on the top of hill/drop off. I have found deer hair clumps stuck on the top of the fence.

Deer are related to goats. They are what are commonly referred to as unconscious nibblers. Which means they will eat almost anything. Up to and including pine needles which they seem to like very much. So far everything we have put out in the front yard they have eaten. Except the mint plants, and a lemon that one of my grand kids tried to feed to one of them and the deer tried to eat it. The thing you need to know about deer is that their appetites will change. Just when you think they won’t eat something you go out into your garden only to find it chopped down to the ground. The only thing I am sure that a deer won’t eat, is what ever is inside a fence, a really tall fence.

You forgot rocks. They don't eat them if they are bad tasting.