Deer-Proof Vegetable Garden with a Graceful Fence

Gardening in deer country often means unsightly, prison-like fences. But in rural Redmond, Washington, an enclosed vegetable garden is surrounded by a graceful 10-foot-tall fence built by Harry Beal of Castle-n-Grounds (Duval, Washington), adapted from a pattern seen in Sunset.

The fence features closely spaced pickets at the bottom to exclude small animals, and a grid of 1×1 squares above that forms a deer-proof barrier. It's capped with 2×8 and beveled 2×6 cedar, with pressure-treated corner posts topped by finials. Deer have never jumped the swinging picket gates at the front and back.

Inside the 50-foot-square enclosure, vegetables that deer would otherwise devour grow alongside flowers in raised mounds of compost and sand.