Darn Deer

My confidence in gardening has just been shot to - well somewhere!

This morning I found a zillion deer tracks inside my electric fenced area of my raised beds.  They really like my tomatoes, but so do I !!!!  If they like cucumbers they will not find any in my garden.  I know this because I cannot find any either!  I did find one about two weeks ago that was about fourteen inches long, and it was put into bread and butter pickles.  Now I have a second one that I picked today.  I hate to give up on growing this particular type of cucumber as they have thin skins and no seeds  to speak of, thus they make great pickles.  Years ago I grew them very successfully, but this is the third year that they have failed to produce.

To add insult to injury, it appears that the deer have stripped my Muscadine vines of  their grapes, and they have not even ripened yet!  I still have two vines which have prize grapes, to me.  They are large and purple and taste so wonderful.  The deer may be avoiding them because they are in  a spot away from the ones along the road.  My neighbors are always telling me that they see deer in my vineyard but I cannot see the vines from my house, so I miss a lot of those sightings.  A few days ago I did see a doe with her new babies.  They still had spots on them, and they did not linger there when they saw my car.   It was fun to see but not so much fun that I want to repeat the experience at the expense of my lovely grapes.

So far the deer have not shown a taste for the kiwi.  They may have tried them and were put off by the fuzzy skin, so at least I will get something from my garden.  And it is little comfort to know they cannot climb the fig tree, since the birds can fly in and consume all they want from the top.

Oh well, there are a few measures I can take, like putting out milorganite where the tomatoes are and next year before grapes appear I can put it around in the vineyard.  That has worked in the  past around my flowers.

I will probably get no sympathy from my grandsons other grandmother who  lives in West Milford, New Jersey.  Not only does she have to share with the deer but bears as well.  They have  come up on her porch and bring their babies over to check out her yard.  She takes measures to deter them, like garbage cans with special locks designed to keep out the  bears.  I think she is pretty brave to even live on that mountain, but she loves the lake that goes with it and it has been her home for too many years to even think of moving to the city.

I have had to adjust to planting flowers and plants which the deer do not like to feed on so I must shift gears and concentrate on growing things other than tomatoes.  I have heard that if the deer are hungry enough they will eat anything.  If that is true then I must raise the white flag and retreat to indoor hobbies and  then perhaps I will look upon them as dear deer and not darn deer.