Thursday, September 18, 2008
Not Gnomes
I used to mock people who had all that chintzy statuary in their yards. Now, I want to harness their power in the battle with the deer.
Those evil deer have been opening the gate to our fenced garden (completely encased, 20 or 24 ft tall). They nose under the little gate, move it over and romp around eating our tomatoes, greens, peppers, eggplant, brussels sprouts, cabbage, even taking a bite or two out of our squash. We've been closing up the gate only to find it open again each morning.
Evil deer.
Forget what I said about buying a steer and a pig, I want to eat venison all year. So here's my new plan: Put animatronic wolves with motion sensors that light up their yellow eyes and start them growling. I want them stationed all around our garden. In fact, I want one of the tableaux to be a wolf devouring an animatronic deer.
In spite of our late planting, our sparse planting, battling the bugs and the repetitive attacks by the deer, we have been harvesting a surprising amount of food from the garden. I attribute this entirely to our hard working honeybees. I don't think we'd see such productivity in the face of so many struggles in the garden without our girls. Our feral fruit trees (they were here when we moved) are bearing a lot of fruit without us doing the pruning, weeding or general care they need, not to mention them being in completely the wrong place for getting sun. They are, however, located right next to the hives.
We have several pumpkins and other winter squash that are almost ready to harvest, the multiple billion crookneck squash from the one plant that survived the deer, one tiny watermelon, lots of onions (they don't seem to like those), cabbage, broccoli and broccoli raab, kale, jalapenos (though they aren't that hot, because of our cooler summer this year), sheepnose pimentos (which are amazing, they have been razed by the deer multiple times, and keep putting out peppers, they are survivors, we will definitely plant them again), a few other peppers we've planted (our habaneros are pathetically small, both the plants and the three unripe peppers we have), we've been able to get a few tomatoes, but between the late start, the cool weather and the infernal deer, it looks like we will be making pickled green tomatoes, green tomato relish and green tomato sauce to preserve so we get anything at all from them this year. Our potatoes are doing amazing, so I hope we get a ton of those. We have some plants that have been razed so often that they haven't had a chance to make flowers. Our celery is struggling, and I planted it on time, and I think we have lost all chances with our brussels sprouts thanks to the deer. We hates them.
Those evil deer have been opening the gate to our fenced garden (completely encased, 20 or 24 ft tall). They nose under the little gate, move it over and romp around eating our tomatoes, greens, peppers, eggplant, brussels sprouts, cabbage, even taking a bite or two out of our squash. We've been closing up the gate only to find it open again each morning.
Evil deer.
Forget what I said about buying a steer and a pig, I want to eat venison all year. So here's my new plan: Put animatronic wolves with motion sensors that light up their yellow eyes and start them growling. I want them stationed all around our garden. In fact, I want one of the tableaux to be a wolf devouring an animatronic deer.
In spite of our late planting, our sparse planting, battling the bugs and the repetitive attacks by the deer, we have been harvesting a surprising amount of food from the garden. I attribute this entirely to our hard working honeybees. I don't think we'd see such productivity in the face of so many struggles in the garden without our girls. Our feral fruit trees (they were here when we moved) are bearing a lot of fruit without us doing the pruning, weeding or general care they need, not to mention them being in completely the wrong place for getting sun. They are, however, located right next to the hives.
We have several pumpkins and other winter squash that are almost ready to harvest, the multiple billion crookneck squash from the one plant that survived the deer, one tiny watermelon, lots of onions (they don't seem to like those), cabbage, broccoli and broccoli raab, kale, jalapenos (though they aren't that hot, because of our cooler summer this year), sheepnose pimentos (which are amazing, they have been razed by the deer multiple times, and keep putting out peppers, they are survivors, we will definitely plant them again), a few other peppers we've planted (our habaneros are pathetically small, both the plants and the three unripe peppers we have), we've been able to get a few tomatoes, but between the late start, the cool weather and the infernal deer, it looks like we will be making pickled green tomatoes, green tomato relish and green tomato sauce to preserve so we get anything at all from them this year. Our potatoes are doing amazing, so I hope we get a ton of those. We have some plants that have been razed so often that they haven't had a chance to make flowers. Our celery is struggling, and I planted it on time, and I think we have lost all chances with our brussels sprouts thanks to the deer. We hates them.
Labels: Family, Homesteading
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Oh no, those rascals!! I've dreamt of a venison all year round diet too... especially when we lived in the Santa Cruz mountains. The only time I was able to grow brussel sprouts to the point where they had sprouts on them, the deer broke through the fence and ate them just before they were ready to harvest. I was so mad!
Have you tried having your husband peeing in front of the gate. We did that with our roses (prior to our dog) and it worked like a charm.
Actually, we have considered that option, but because of where the garden is, any activity of that sort would be visible from the FAA driving by, the security people coming through, construction crews, not to mention all the planes taking off or landing. I might send the boys out to do it, though it would cause some of the same issues. It's not quite so bad when it's a little boy, though, not the same as a grown man.
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