guywhofishes - how do you keep your deer fences around the berries stable without fence posts? Large garden staples?
I used a bolt cutter to cut "T's" out of cattle panels left over from my tomato cage fest a few years back. The tees were placed as stakes at 1/3s around the perimeter on the ground. The fence isn't beefy so the deer will easily lean into and bend the current cages.... but the fact that my neighbors generally do not cage their plants makes our neighborhood deer fairly passive - they seem to move on if getting at the plant is at all difficult.
If they do get ornery and I find it necessary I will put a hot wire (electric fence) perimeter around the top of every cage - like they do for horse fencing. I hot-wired my wife's birdfeeders and it's quite effective. I am determined to win the deer battle - I take it as sort of a challenge.
The "goat fence" circles are visually kind of elegant... a pleasant surprise for us. IF I can keep Royce from crashing into them in hot pursuit of something, or keep deer off them, they should last until the dwarf canadian cherry trees and fruit bushes reach a state where I can afford some loss. Then I'll likely move the cages to new young plants.
If you're scratching your head about cutting the T's I can post pics if desired. The industrial duty tomato cages, by the way, were an unmitigated success.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/krn3hapj1l1h38v/tomato cages.pdf?dl=0
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