I was going to suggest onions and garlic as that is the only crops of mine they never bother. Potatoes don't get too much attention from them unless nothing else is available.

Dave

I was also going to recommend potatoes but it seems much depends on just how hungry the deer are and what is available for them.

Maybe fencing, getting a dog, or putting a dog pen out near this area will help or are things to consider?

Oh I also read some other things like laying fencing down on the ground in or around the area as deer don't like to walk on things like that. I imagine something that might catch their feet would spook them? They appear to be opportunistic thieves.

Also the jury is still out on this Windmill Mole chaser I bought last year for ground moles but it seemed to keep the deer away from my carrot box at the end of last season.
http://www.harborfreight.com/catalogsearch/result?q=Mole+Chaser

fwiw - theSolar Mole Chaser may also be working to keep the moles (& deer) at bay but like I said the jury is still out. It does make a beep every so often. They are located in diff areas but not so sure the windmill works for the moles just the deer, maybe?

HTH

there no point in suggesting a fence since OP is to cheap to install one. thus the OP original question.

Deer have no interest in my artichokes either. Or leeks. Or any of my herbs - organo, thyme, dill, rosemary, fennel, even basil I have not had them eat.

They are easy to discourage and lazy in the summer if there is lots of other food. A cheap 4 foot fence should do it.

<Deer have no interest in my artichokes either.>

I have seen walk right by collards. Keep in mind that doesn't mean IF they were hungry and there wasn't much else they would continue to walk by.

My mother always said - when you get hungry you will eat anything.

The problem with brassicas is the groundhogs. We have lots of them here and they are groundhog crack. They are much worse than deer.

When they are hungry and there isn't anything else around, the deer will eat just about anything. Thankfully this isn't during vegetable gardening season.

I didn't think about groundhogs, so mea culpa.

However I would put groundhogs in another category as they will live nearby and only feed during the daytime. While deer travel miles n miles foraging and can feed anytime day or night.

Groundhogs will run back to their hole in the ground, so once you find that you can buy lethal smoke bombs at places like Home Depot and most garden centers. Keep in mind IF you have one you have a whole family and they ALL need to eat. On the bright side they will ALL be in their hole after sundown and at noon time. So one smoke bomb done right will take out the whole fam damily.

Fill in the holes (there may be more than one so look around) so you can tell when some do gooder traps one and decides to let it go where you are.

Note: this is the time of year when you may see the babies out wandering around looking for food.

For years now I planted broccoli only so I could tell IF there were any groundhogs feeding.

This is for the area just for this season. I expect to relocate daffodils to this area. But I do have some odd places, at the edge of my garden, not fenced in. I do have two fenced areas, but already for many other things.

So this is for totally open area, with deer and sometimes groundhog and rabbit pressure. I trapped a total of 14 groundhogs, opossum and rabbit last year. This year, two groundhogs already.

I would definitely go with onions, leeks, and herbs, if you wanted edibles. Too late for artichokes anyway.

You could try pumpkins and when they flower, cover them with deer netting. If you are willing to do deer netting of course, there are many options you could try. If you wanted something perennial, asparagus could work. They generally leave those alone for me and they do leave potatoes alone most of the time. They have eaten onions for me too, but not often.

They say coyote urine sprayed around keeps the deer away. I however doubt that would work. In the winter time I clear out about a 15 sq foot area in the snow out the side of a garage door and also made a path from the overhead door going past this area to the back patio. The cleared out area is for the dog to do its business in the winter time. A couple times I saw deer tracks going right down the pathway and waltzing right past the area where there was dog business, both A and B :/

The only real way to be sure to stop deer is a fence. Usually a high one but if the garden is only 5ft wide you may be able to get away with a 6 ft fence because they may feel somewhat trapped jumping over it if its only 5 ft wide. There are other things you can do like hang a bunch of foil pie pans up to both make shiny moving objects and clattering noise at night. They work for a while until the deer figure out they are as harmless as tree leaves blowing in the woods. Bobex deer spray works good but having to apply it all the time would end up costing more than a deer fence kit. Its about $15 a bottle. For a 5 x 30 area you can get a $99 deer fence kit. With good care it should last 3 to 5 years. Thats what I use for my 20 x 26 plot. Although I also have an outer perimeter rabbit fence about 6 inches away because I discovered the rabbits just chewed through the deer fence. You could always try a fishing line fence, I've heard and read about it but never tried it. So the only sure way to keep out deer is a fence 5 ft to 8 ft high depending on the size of the fenced area. IE 5 ft around 1 young apple tree about a foot from the longest branches will suffice. A garden my size 7 ft suffices because they would need more of a running start to get out and they wont go into spots if they might feel trapped. A large garden would need 8 feet high and there even has been stories of bionic deer getting in and out of those. Thats under normal conditions. If there is over crowding and starvation then there may be more desperate attempts to gain access.

Some say if you cant beat um feed um. Such as planting plants deer like to eat on some other area of the property. I don't like that strategy. Its like inviting more problems to the party. Like handing out free beer and wine at the company party. That's another reason I only use mouse traps in the garage. Why would I want to "bait" more mice into the garage?

I bait mice outside before they get into the house or garage.