When I was speaking to the Qualicum Beach Garden club last night I posed a question to the audience at the beginning of the talk.  I didn’t rush the process. I knew I was in the company of garden keeners so I thought I would crowd source the question so many of us veggie gardeners want to know. I had them think about what they would grow in a deer prone area.

I started speaking about my New Year’s gardening projects. I chatted up my indoor and very successful micro-greens project seeded December 27, 2012. I spoke about already eating three salads of pea shoot micro-greens this week just 7-10 days after seeding.

After a fun 45 minutes describing the Ten Things I Love about Vegetables I reminded the audience I needed their help. I started a straw bale garden on January 1, 2013 outdoors. Part of the garden is outside my deer-proof fence. I still need to wait for the straw to mellow and the season to improve but when the planting time comes I need a list of locally hardy vegetables for this deep-prone area.

The audience bantered back and forth. Many ideas came forward and many were dumped right away. I discovered last year the deer avoided my squash so I put that on my list but others booed that idea (UPDATE: By 2015 that changed – the deer ate all types of squash). Someone suggested Shitake mushrooms but most of the audience thought no- it just wouldn’t be warm enough to grow mushrooms outdoors.

In the end we came up with a short list of plants to try in  my straw bale, deer exposed garden. I crowd sourced the answer and together with over 100 people we decided if you are thinking ahead to spring and wonder what might grow in an area likely to be visited by deer, these vegetables are worth a try:

Garlic, Artichokes, Cardoon, Broad Beans, Amaranth, Corn Salad and Squash (maybe). 

Let me know at [email protected] if you have any other ideas for deer proof vegetables. Let’s expand this crowd sourcing to the whole world. If you write, please tell me where you live so we can create a map of deer proof vegetables!