Those Deer Little Ones!

This has been an unbelievably tough year on the garden.  Weatherwise..it should have been perfect!  We had an early spring after an almost "not" winter.  Rains have been perfectly timed and even the winds have been cooperating!  But, still, the garden is in wrack and ruin.  Critters!  Critters of all sorts have taken a liking to my plants!  Actually, all of this started with the seeds.  We planted the hotbed with the usual tomato and pepper seeds.  Out of four packs of each, a mere three peppers and seven tomatoes survived.  I found that I had mole crickets  infesting the hotbed.  These critters did not eat the seeds but the new seedling plants were soon devoid of any tender roots.  This caused my seedlings to wither and wilt.  After just a few days, I was down to less that a dozen plants.  This was no way to start a garden!  Then, the grasshoppers came in and decimated my squash!  Overnight, the ten inch tall squash plants were stripped to a small stalk.  Even the blooms were eaten!  I was heartbroken but vowed to replant.  I would have a garden!

Things went well for a few weeks.  The replanted gardens were starting to thrive!  The squash plants were blooming again and the few tomato plants were starting to fill their cages!  I was happy again!  The empty plots once again resembled healthy gardens.  In the peach orchard, we had planted five rows of Crowder Peas.  I had suggested this as the garden had a hefty, five-foot tall fence around it.  That fence was topped with a single strand of electric wire and had two other strands spaced below that.  This electric wire was not charged enough to truly hurt any animal or bird since it was solar powered but it was there just to make the critters think twice about entering the area.  I was most positive that the peas would be safe there!  I was wrong..oh, so wrong!  Some time during the night, a thief..or maybe several..entered that garden.  My peaches were nipped to the seed and the Crowder Peas were gnawed to the ground!  I had nary a pea plant!  I was quick to blame the birds since I did not think anything else could penetrate this fortress!  Then, I saw the back fence!  The entire fence was on the ground!  The corner post had been hit with such force that it had broken off at the ground.  Now, granted, the post was getting a tad wobbly as it aged..but oh, my goodness!  It was broken in two!  My garden had been violated!  I started scanning the ground for evidence and soon found it!  Hoof prints of a deer!  So that was what was purloining my peaches and pinching my peas!  The very same deer that I had been feeding down in the front yard had now decided to visit the gardens!  My poor peaches and peas!

I am pondering whether to even bother planting anything else this summer.  I still have several hundred jars of home-canned goodies on the shelves and three huge freezers full of seafood.  Do I need the extra work?  Do I need the added stress?  Probably not but today, I pulled out the seeds and started planning a summer garden.  If nothing else..the critters around the Bayou will be nice and fat for the winter!