One of the big battles I had with the garden plot last year was with the deer. The plot is located in a large Provincial park. A large park with a healthy deer population. A healthy deer population comfortable with human presence and with a taste for the finer things in life. They treated the garden plot like an all-you-can eat buffet. Why battle the wild for edible twigs, leaves and berries when there is a supply of fresh vegetation?
We discovered that the deer loved peas, beans, lettuce, spinach and beets. Later in the season we discovered that they loved green tomatoes (this one was particular hard as I had seen the promise of a delicious crop to come in those tomatoes.
The deer did ignore radishes, corn, jalapeno peppers and carrots. They also didn't seem enamoured of RIPE tomatoes (if you were able to nurse some to that stage).
After each new onslaught I'd try to build the fence a little higher.
At first I joked that we were expecting geriatric deer unable to jump more than four feet.
Ha!
These were Olympic level athletes able to leap 6 feet.
I'm not taking chances this year. We have built the fence higher and stronger than last year. The fence is eight feet tall, the posts are placed closer together than they were last year, the wooden posts are thicker and more sturdy than the ones last year. Finally, we used 100s of cable ties in an effort to ensure that weak areas are strengthened.
Don't get me wrong. I believe that nature will win as always. I just hope that the damage done is limited compared to what we experienced last growing season. I'm actually happy top share with the deer, unfortunately their brains aren't developed enough to understand the concept of taking SOME and leaving SOME for others! :-)
Fence building was a four day process.
The first day was easy - I picked up the supplies.
The second day was more challenging - we lugged all of the supplies to the plot. Drove the metal support posts as deep into the ground as we could and put up the first four foot layer of fence.
We rewarded our efforts with our first picnic lunch of the year.
Yesterday was HOT. We split our work in two because we were getting a bit dizzy from the heat. The first part was placing the 8 foot wooden posts. Then we added about half of the second 4 foot layer. When things cooled down later in the day we went back and finished the final layer.
There is still some more to do - it won't happen today because we are getting some work done at the house and it is raining. When the soil dries I'll go and finish things off by tying down any loose spots.
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