Sounds a lot like me. I started my corn late That’s because I like to start my own and then replant, but for some reason none of them came up, so I ended up waiting till it warmed enough to start them in the ground.
We have King snakes around here that will help keep the gopher and other rodent population down, along with rattlers, but it’s never enough. I still need to use protected boxes and fencing.
Two years ago the dear kept stopping by my garden at night on their way to the creek and wiped my tomato crop out, along with my cucs and bell peppers. No matter what I tried I could not stop them. Starting last year I began putting my fence up and it helped, but the problem still remains that if they want them they can jump 10 feet to get into them.
This year I am tempted to set up a dear stand and poach some venison for the freezer. I already have an abundance of wild turkey that live around here. There is a family of about 60, but come fall you can here the neighbors shooting them for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. So far we haven’t because my wife won’t let me.
If I can find them, I’ll post a pic of the turkeys. It;s quite an eye opener to see.
A lot of times you can keep deer away from your garden by peeing around it.
If you have neighbors don’t like you peeing around your garden, try hanging some strips of cloth soaked in cheap aftershave around.
An electric fence works but you need 2 or 3 strands of wire and tie strips of surveying flagging tape on the wires.
The deer can’t see the wire at night but they can see the tape and will walk up and put their nose to it to check out what it is.
They get that nose on that wire once then pretty much steer clear and avoid it after that.
Until the hurricanes wiped them out I had a lot of pine trees around the house.
With pine trees comes copperheads.
Place used to be crawling with copperheads.
Still see one every now and then but not too often.
That king snake has been hanging around for 2-3 years now I guess and I haven’t seen any copperheads since he’s been hanging around.
He’s about 6ft and 21/2”-3” diameter so he’s big enough to take care of himself with a copperhead.
First corn which commands a high price ,here in Western NY is grown outdoors in rows heated by solar heat under black plastic used as a mulch.
OneVike:".. (deer)wiped my tomato crop out, along with my cucs and bell peppers. No matter what I tried I could not stop them."
Consider a 'hot sause' of hot pepper (jalaipino , ghost pepper , scrorpion, etc)juice on your plants.
Take two (or 3 ) hot peppers, slice up (with seeds)and put into 1 gallon jug of water, allow to 'steep' into a tea for approximately 4 days in the sun.
Strain the liquid thru cheesecloth or coffee filter to get out the solids, with only liquid remaining.
Add 4-5 drops of mild liquid dishwashing soap (Dove , Palmolive,etc.) as a surfactant (speads liquid, and makes it adhere to waterproof plant leaves).
Spray top and bottom of leaves - will give the deer 'hot mouth'/ unpleasant taste . I use an old used glass cleaner bottle.
Re-apply after any rainfall to the top surface; hard rain reapply top and bottom of leaves.
You should have sufficient left-overs to be used during the growing season.
Leave the left-overs in the sun with the soids to continue to have the heat work and increase the heat . YMMV.