Tuesday, August 03, 2010

This is my 3rd year of planting a vegetable garden in our backyard. It has been a wonderful experience and I have enjoyed many yummy veggies from our hard work. But Jamie awoke me from my peaceful slumber this morning to show me something in my garden that falls way beyond my realm of gardening knowledge:
There was a deer eating the leaves of my luscious tomato plant!



I wanted to scare him away, but I also wanted a picture. So as quickly as my first thing in the morning body works I located my camera and snapped a shot through the foggy door. The deer knew that we were there. My first thing in the morning body does not move that fast especially when my just woke up brain is trying to remember where the camera is. So the deer had looked over at us a couple times--it was not going anywhere until we made some sort of effort to scare it away. Jamie asked if I wanted to take a picture with the door open so it was clearer. He said he would open it slowly and I could snap it quick. Then he warned me that it would probably freak me out when the thing took off. I got in position, took the quick picture and then started making noise to scare the stupid thing away. It looked up and literally sauntered across the yard and slowly leaped over the neighbor's fence. I think it would have let me come out there and pet it. I should have taken a picture of it just moseying across my yard, but with each slow step the deer was infuriating me (and I was still operating with my just woke up brain).

So, I don't know if it will come back. I haven't done much reading on deer invading your garden and their tendency to return. I hate the bunnies that attempt to come and I tell my neighbor to sick her cat on them. So now what in the world do I do with Bambi?


9 comments:

Unknown said...

Only you would have a sauntering deer Gretchen. Did it eat a lot of the tomato plant? Will the plant survive? Kaish and Naji love the deer picture. It seems like you got way up close. I'm glad jamie suggested opening the door. That man is brilliant.

Anita Johnson said...

Good luck with the deer. We sometimes have up to 7 in the yard at once...they treat our garden like a salad bar!

Buckeroomama said...

They're cute until they start attacking your garden. :)

Good luck with keeping it away.

Tezzie said...

Wow! Makes my hare problem seem like nothing! You could always try sicking your neighbour's cat on him ;D

RoseBelle said...

I have raccoons sneaking up in my backyard. They're huge too! Glad your garden is doing well. Mine fails every year. The climate in my city isn't that great. It's mostly cloudy and foggy which makes it hard to grow anything.

I'm your newest follower!

Full of JOY said...

I had the best salad I've ever had in my life from that garden. Get that beast outta there!!

kasey said...

Plant some peppermint by your tomatoes! Deer don't like peppermint! We got a lot of deer in PA, I didn't have a garden myself, but a lot of people I knew did and they had peppermint to deter the deer! :)

gretchen said...

I don't see much damage to the plant, so I think it will survive. He just knocked off some of the green tomatoes. :(

Thanks for the tip on the peppermint, Kasey!

Anonymous said...

That is sort of unbelievable. I didn't know you had deer in the area. Do you want Charlie Brown to come up??