It’s that magical time of year. The air is finally warming up, the sky is no longer shrouded in clouds and deep within yourself you feel the need to plant a garden. You go to the local plant nursery, pick out some young plants, plunge them into the soil and congratulate yourself. The next morning, eager to see any signs of growth, you pour yourself a cup of tea and head out to check on the progress of your new recruits.

Then you see it.

In place of the young hopefuls that were tenderly planted only the day before, you find clipped rosettes in the ground.

The deer welcoming committee decided to pay you a visit.

Deer seem to instinctively know which plants to maim and proceed to do so by order of costliness/rarity of plant.

While many commercial repellents boast their efficacy, it doesn’t have to be so chemical-tacular or complicated in the garden.

Here’s a list of some natural (or less toxic) ways of repelling deer from your garden.

1. Blood Meal.

Deer, being prey animals, detest the smell of bovine blood. Blood meal also has the extra perk of adding nutrients to the soil upon application. After rain be sure to throw some blood meal around the base of your prized plants (so as to maintain the potency of the repelling qualities).

2. Fox urine.

Fox urine, while effective, can be expensive. Also, as with fox urine, you can be certain that it’s going to be stinky around the garden.

3. Bar soap.

Some soaps simply seem to irk deer in a fortuitous way. Use mesh bags to suspend whole bars of either Dial Deodorant Soap (yellow bar) or Irish Spring near trees, shrubs and plants that are being overly-pruned by cloven-hooved visitors.

4.Onion trimmings.

The next time you make a nice meal, be sure to save the onion trimmings and scatter them around your plants. Deer detest the smell of onions. If you need more onion power, take entire onions and blend them with water. Use the onion shake around your plants and enjoy seeing your plants go unperturbed. Check the potency of the onion odor (once applied) to determine when it’s fading and needs reapplication.

5. Biodegradable kitty litter.

First, be sure NOT to apply the urine-rich (not #2) kitty litter in your VEGGIE GARDEN. This bit of advice is for ornamental gardens only! If you use diatomacious earth or cedar/pine shavings based kitty litter, take the peed-upon litter and scatter it around deer-afflicted plants. It’s best to scrape mulch aside and put the litter under the mulch for aesthetic purposes. Re apply after rain. The cat urine in the kitty litter smells like the territory markings of a predator, and discourages deer from foraging around that plant.

To make the deer repelling process easier in general, gather or prepare the deer repellent of your choice before you head to the garden to plant new plants and tend others. Once you’ve finished weeding/putting new plants into the ground, apply the repellent as needed. The more regularly you maintain the presence of your repellents in the garden, the more effective they will be.