Wildlife Scores Again

When you have done your best for a flower, and it fails, you have some reason to be aggrieved. ~Frank Swinnerton

DD went outside to harvest pea pods yesterday and came in sobbing like her dog had been run over. Turned out, once I calmed her down enough to talk, that deer had eaten her yellow heritage tomato plants down to the ground. I decided to go see if she was exaggerating.

She wasn't.

And not only had they eaten her two plants, but the topped ALL our tomatoes -- took off a good 12 - 18" off every single plant (except my heritage plants which were significantly smaller than my DD's and apparently beneath notice). They also helped themselves to our green beans and about half the baby apples on our tree.

To top it off, they also grazed in my front yard, and ate the tops (ergo the buds and flowers) off of my snapdragons, liatris and columbine (this is supposedly deer resistant, but apparently MY deer didn't read the memo as they ate it nearly to the ground).

Normally I use a fertilizer called Milorganite to keep deer away. I sprinkle it everywhere and it STINKS. It's actually made from human waste and I've found it works better than anything else including various predator urines... or it would if it hadn't been raining constantly. See... we've had rain again for two solid days (and you remember the 23 days of rain in June, right), so everything I put down is washed away. And short of living outside to shoo them off, there really is little else I can do. I can't put a twelve foot fence all the way around my property.

AND... I've discovered it's not voles but chipmunks that are digging up all the bulbs in my gardens.

It's discouraging, to say the least. We won't talk about how the squirrels are able to eat on my squirrel resistant feeder... no, we won't do that.

I spent time yesterday considering a plan of attack. If the blasted rain would stop, milorganite in the veggie garden would work, but to be honest, I don't think DD's tomatoes will bounce back in time to produce fruit, and that breaks my heart.

I've researched various deer resistant flowers and bulbs, and will be completely redoing the garden in the front. Again. It's the garden the voles decimated last year. And, actually, I'll be paring down what gardens I have and planting grass, which breaks my heart.

But short of killing every living creature in my yard (who would only be replaced by more anyway -- even if I belived that was an option) there's really not much else I can do.

*sigh*

There is something to be said about city living. At least you don't have to battle the wildlife.

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