by FJ540 on Tue Nov 20, 2012 7:08 pm
I've had good luck with oats, and actually had them as my back-up plan if my turnips and clover failed this year; but if the deer aren't aware of them, they might not get eaten right away. Deer LOVE oats, they're cheap, they grow with nothing more than water (like - get them wet and they'll grow on a shelf absent of any dirt), but they do die when they get cold. They also won't regrow once they've seeded out.
Side issue/benefit is that turkey also LOVE oats. When I planted them last year, I did it early in the summer to give the deer time to discover them (which they needed, as it took a while before they figured out it wasn't just grass), and when I tried to re-seed them in early September, the turkey ate up all my seeds - total failure for deer season.
Turnips are the same price per acre, just as easy to grow (I broadcast them with a Scotts $12 hand held seed spreader over unprepared grass/debris), and don't get attacked by other critters like the oats did. Turnips also help break up hard pan, as their bulbs act like little plows pushing the soil around for you. The last bonus for turnips is that they keep growing down into the 40's!