The Walden Effect: Farming, simple living, permaculture, and invention.

The deer won

Deer damage

The deer have officially won the war of the early summer garden. It pains me to admit defeat...but the parts of the fencing delay that I could have changed (Mark enjoying six weeks filming with graduate students, a trip of a lifetime to visit his brother out West, Mom coming to visit our new digs, my writing taking precedence over all else), I wouldn't change. And the parts we couldn't change --- health problems, weather  craziness --- well, we obviously have to roll with all that.

Covered beans

Which is not to say that the garden was a complete loss. We ended up eating a lot of broccoli and lettuce, a couple of cucumbers, a few handfuls of peas, and various herbs. But all of the parts that are uncovered are now pretty much kaput.

Red zinnia

I'm disappointed, obviously. But establishment years always have unexpected hurdles to overcome. And our soil is clearly improving, as evidenced by the fact that our plantings suddenly became tasty enough for the deer to eat as soon as our topdressed manure began to sink in.

Meanwhile, I'm singing the gardener's endless refrain: "There's always the next garden in the fall." If I plant now in flats, maybe we will have managed to fence in the garden when the time comes to set out....



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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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So sorry about those eaten-up plants!

I wonder if any of the plants can regrow any of their leaves...sort of an experiment, I guess.

I wish you could use a mousetrap on those deer!

Have you thought to try to use one of the community gardens?

Comment by adrianne Wed Jun 20 17:22:33 2018
Good that you are looking to fall. Sorry summer garden got so chewed!
Comment by Maggie Thu Jun 21 06:18:05 2018

My folks in central MN have now retired from growing a large garden as it's too much physical work anymore, but as a kid growing up we just did not have the predator problems, deer were not as prevalent, we would lose some stuff to rabbits and my father's main scourge, the woodchuck each year, but nothing was totally wiped out.

Towards the end of the gardening dad quit growing sweet corn as he just could not keep up with the devastation the Raccoons would cause, and it seemed the rest of the pests got worse. Without a fence such as yours it is nearly futile to try growing things there anymore!

Comment by Eric Fri Jun 22 17:30:49 2018





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