Wednesday, July 4, 2012

the critters' salad bar

I fear my vegetable garden has become a salad bar for critters.  It all started with the rebuild of the fence and gate.  When Harry took down the sagging farm gates to rebuild them, he bridged the gap with a wire fence that we'd used for the dogs some time ago.  The thing is, it wasn't quite tall enough to keep out the deer.  One morning we found that many of the new kale and lettuce plants had been munched, along with the leaves of the apple tree. 


We suspected deer because there are a lot of them around here. (I know better than to plant Hostas or Tulips in my front yard--but the back yard is a cornucopia of leafy delights.)


We didn't actually see any deer--but these photos were taken by my friend Linette at her house not too far from here.  So you know they're around, antlers and all!

















Anyway the next day we added some wires at the top of the wire fenc to keep the deer out.

But things are continuing to be munched.  My Nasturtium flowers don't bloom--all that's left is chomped stems.  The kale is decimated, and the hostas and lettuces have big bites taken out of them.  It was a mystery.... 

Until yesterday when I went around the outside of the fence and saw this little fellow eating clover.  As I came closer he ducked right under the fence and headed back into his salad bar--our vegetable garden.

I guess I'm just going to have share my veggies with these little cuties.






3 comments:

  1. At lest your critters are cute.
    My critters are disgusting, packrats.
    Daughter and I planted a very small garden and even put three different sets of lights that come on from dusk to dawn to keep the packrats out with screening too and they still came and ate everything. After the third re-planting I gave up.
    There is nothing left.

    But your new fence is looking great !

    cheers, parsnip

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  2. That is so frustrating...our son had a deer in his garden the other day, but so far, so good, everything is still intact. I think if you don't want to "share" your veggies with the bunnies, you have to dig down quite a bit around your fence and put chicken wire or something below grade. Keeping the burrowing types away.

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  3. Aww! He is much cuter than the slugs who chew our beans. They look like lace.

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