I wish I could say that we are enjoying the summer offerings in the garden, but the neighborhood critters keep cutting in front of us in the buffet line.
Our garden got off to such a good start. We made new garden sticks. We made the most of small spaces. We had a lot of rain to get things growing. And we even had a few days of tomato harvesting (see top photo): Sungolds, Sweet 100s, and our first Big Boy. The kids were especially excited about the first Big Boy since they have such good memories of Aunt Janet's.
But it turns out that the squirrels are also Big Boy fans. In the course of just a few days they essentially destroyed what had been a thriving plant full of nearly ripe tomatoes. And the worst part of it was that the little buggers didn't really eat them. They tossed them around the back yard and even left a taunting little pile of them on the back steps and in the driveway (see above).
The squirrels aren't the only ones enjoying themselves in the garden. The bunnies are also fans of open air buffets. Bob is going through a growth spurt and decided to mow down a big clump of dill, the cosmos seedlings, pansies, purple cone flowers, and all of the parsley. It's turning out to be quite a frustrating summer in the garden!
The parents of one of my friends got so fed up "sharing" their veggie garden with the deer and smaller critters that they literally enclosed it with screening and/or chicken wire from about 6" underground all the way up & over to connect the covering chicken wire to the rain gutter on the house's roof. I remember enjoying the Big Boy tomatoes in my own garden years ago, but only because the critters had already gorged themselves on my melons, squash, cukes, and strawberries...!
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