Building a psychological fence

Mind trickery to keep deer from eating our tomatoes, again.

Welcome back to Tiny Seeds and a new growing season! I’m glad you’re here.

If you’ve been following along for a few years, you know we’ve tried just about everything to keep deer and other unwanted guests out of our garden. From noxious-smelling sprays to dog hair around the perimeter, it’s all worked a little — until it doesn’t.

This year we’ve reinforced the bottom of our garden fencing further into the ground so critters like rabbits and groundhogs can’t dig their way in. And I’m planning to install a psychological fence that I hope will be the be-all-end-all solution to deer invaders.

The idea, basically, is to tie a clothes line around stakes inside the garden, about four feet off the ground and three feet in from where our fence is. The deer are supposed to see this, be afraid they’ll get tangled up and not have a clear landing, and move on to the next sucker’s garden. Tom from Colorado swears by it, and I found him on the internet, so it has to work. Right?

Another new-to-me thing we’re trying is to bury our tomato plants much deeper than we have in previous seasons. This is supposed to help the plants develop better, stronger roots, which lead to more/better tomatoes. We have three varieties in the ground now, and I buried them so that just the top leaves are showing.

A rhododendron sunset with our gym teacher for the day, which came with a whistle…

We also planted some seeds with a new dibbler that I picked up from Target. Mostly an impulse buy because I like the word dibbler, it does make quick work out of planting seeds at a uniform, correct depth. We put seeds of zinnias and wildflowers around the fence line, and rows of parsley, squash, cucumber, corn, fish pepper, hot Portugal pepper, and sweet Marconi red pepper inside.

Some of last year’s herbs survived the winter, including a hearty rosemary bush that I plucked some twigs from for a duck dish that we brought to a friend’s house over Memorial Day weekend. I took a whole local duck from Hamburg, Pa., farm Joe Jurgielewicz and Son and put it in a Dutch oven with garlic and that rosemary. I cooked it covered at 275 for four hours, basting it every hour or so. It basically braised in its own fat and juices, making the meat impossibly tender. At our friend’s house, I put the duck on a wire rack set over a baking sheet and broiled it for about 10 minutes until the skin got super crispy. It was pick-apart goodness that reminded me of a Caja China pig roast in Miami.

Painting bread slices with macerated berry juice for a summer pudding.

We chased the savory duck with a sweet summer berry “pudding” that pastry chef Caroline Schiff has in the current issue of Food & Wine magazine. I don’t see the F&W recipe online yet but this version is a close match. Jagger picked the berries with us from a local u-pick farm and then “painted” their juice on the bread slices that form this domed dessert.

Speaking of Jagger, we just ordered him his first neck tie for his kindergarten graduation next week. This spring has been a whirlwind of firsts at school — field trip to the theater, science fair experiment, gym teacher for the day, international luncheon, 1st grade assessment — all leading up to this very big day for our little old soul.

Ommmm, a moment of peace.

I can’t wait to spend time with him in the garden this summer. We’ll keep you posted on the success or failure of the psychological fence, the deeply buried tomatoes, and whatever else comes our way.

Until next time — thank you for reading!