Total Garden Wipe Out...

...yep...all of it...with the exception of a few heirloom tomatoes...it's all gone. 

 

We spent the long 4th of July weekend at our ranch house about 100 miles North of here.  This is not a new activity.  We've been doing this for years and I've never had a a problem with the garden.  Except this past weekend.  I think a deer (or more than one) got on the property (having jumped a 6-foot high deer fence) and with no one around and no dogs here to chase them away, he/she/they had a feast in my garden and destroyed it all.  There's nothing left except a few chewed up heirloom tomato plants.  

I can't tell you how I felt Monday when we got home and I went to check on the garden.  Utterly devastated about sums it up.  Yes, I cried.  I wasn't even angry.  Just crushed and very very sad.  All that work...all those beautiful vegetables...all those wonderful meals that will never be...gone in an instant. 

Maybe the Universe is punishing me for gloating about how well my garden was doing (although I doubt this one).  Maybe it's payback karma for something awful I did either in this life or a past one.  Maybe it's a result of throwing too many left over parsley/cilantro stems over the fence to the deer.  Maybe they got greedy and saw the smorgasbord inside my garden and wanted more.  I've quit trying to explain it and am now simply accepting it.

I had actually written a few posts on my peppers and squash because they were so beautiful and healthy and I really wanted to share them with you guys.  But alas, that will never be.  Here are a few before and after pictures...but be sure to grab a box of tissues...what you're about to see is pretty sad.

Beautiful peppers before

Peppers after the attack

And here is what my lone squash plant looked like before...

And after...

 

And a few after shots of my heirloom tomatoes, eggplant and green bean plants...

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK...enough whining.  Believe me, I have put all this in perspective.  It is not the end of the world.  There are worse things in life, I know that.  I have a son who's been deployed since January.  Thankfully, he's on his way home and God willing, should be home safely with his wife and soon-to-be-born baby boy in about six weeks.  I have family who live on Pensacola Bay and tar balls are beginning to show up on what used to be beautiful pristine beaches.  I have a dear friend who is not in the best of health and who is in constant pain.  These are the serious events in life that ought to be fretted about; not my garden being eaten by critters who are just doing what they do in the natural world.

But for about 24 hours, this event in my little microcosm of the Universe sent me for a loop.  Now it's time to get over it and figure out a way to protect my garden in the future, which my wonderful husband has already done :)  Before becoming a doctor, he was an engineer and he has devised a fencing system for my garden that, hopefully, will keep the deer critters out!  I just love him (not the deer critters...my wonderful husband)!

Now it's time to get to work.  I plan to pull all the plant stubs, except the heirlooms, this week.  The heirlooms came through this massacre pretty well and I should be able to salvage a few of the plants and hopefully get some fruit off them during the remainder of this season.  I likely won't plant anything again until the new fence is in place.  I'll keep you all posted on that project.  But that gives me time to get the beds ready for late summer/fall planting.  And have no doubt about this, I will rise to plant again! :)