'Irish Spring' keeping deer away from lettuce at farm

GILFORD — Beans and Greens Farmstand is rejoicing in its recent success in keeping lettuce-munching deer away from its fields.

After losing over 6,000 heads of lettuce to a roaming herd of deer earlier this summer, the lettuce crop is now doing well thanks to hundreds of bars of Irish Spring deodorant soap which has been placed around the fields.

''It seems to be working. Last week for the first time in six weeks we had our own lettuce. It's keeping them away a little bit, but I'm still worried about the pumpkin crop,'' says Andy Howe, Beans and Greens owner.

He said that the farmstand was deluged with suggestions for keeping the deer away after a story about the deer problem appeared in The Daily Sun a few weeks ago.

''We got all kinds of phone calls from all over the place from people offering suggestions on how to keep the deer away. We'd never heard about using soap. But we put Irish Spring all over the place and it's holding them off for now.''

He said that after receiving permission from the state Fish and Game Department two deer were taken down earlier this summer, but the rest of the herd continued to show up.

''We still have guys hunting for us who have deer tags from the USDA if they start coming back into the fields.'' said Howe.

He said that he and his wife, Martina, had used every possible way they could think of to discourage the deer from coming into their fields, including electric fencing with flagging tape, animal urine and commercial deer repellents. None of those worked.

''We're really grateful to all those people who gave us ideas for dealing with this problem and the kind of support they showed for us,'' said Howe.