Outfoxed by the deer

From the Dept. of All Good Things Must Come to an End

Welp. Our psychological fence against deer worked great — until it didn’t.

We stepped outside this morning to check on the garden’s progress, and what was hunkered down by our tomato plants but a big deer, keeping cool in the still-shaded soil.

She slowly rose, her brown eyes locked with ours, before gracefully ducking under the thin twine of the psychological fence and then bounding in stride over the actual fence. Our ruse was no longer a match for these hoofed invaders.

Oh, hello.

The deer and maybe some of their smaller friends definitely made their presence known: tomato branches chomped bare, flowering ornamentals plucked like candy, half-eaten cucumbers left behind.

RIP.

It’s a bummer — and a setback — but I’m fortunate to have two supportive co-gardeners here who remind me that we’re not alone in our green-thumb struggles, and the only way to create success in the garden is to try and try again.

I follow a bunch of Facebook gardening pages (#cool), including a very helpful one run by the Penn State Extension’s master gardeners, and I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about how the extreme heat and lack of rain has forced more animals to seek hydration in garden plants and veggies. So I’m just hoping our produce helped hydrate a cute deer and not a gnarly groundhog.

But, not all is lost.

We’re still growing prolific amounts of herbs and zucchini and cucumber — one clocking in at almost a pound! And while the deer+ have somewhat stunted tomato and pepper production, the plants are still healthy and have plenty of growing season left to rebound.

Oh, hello.

Garden recipe: I took two of those massive cucumbers, chopped them, and put them into the bowl of our blender along with fresh basil and dill, an avocado, juice of one lemon, one peeled garlic clove, Greek yogurt, and salt and pepper. Blitzed it all together into a light, smooth, creamy and refreshing green sauce that we’ve put on grilled cheese sandwiches, spooned over roasted eggplant and rice, and used as a dip for chips.

What are you making with cucumbers this summer?

Celebrating the first calendula bloom!

Until next time — thank you for reading!