Here on Whoopie (Whidbey) Island, I have no garden space. It’s the first year in 25 years I haven’t actively lived and breathed through my garden. I finally decided I HAD to have something, so I planted about 10 containers, with just the right (researched) soil mix, planted and waited through the weirdest summer weather I can remember in my adult life. Finally, after way too long, it produced…beans, sunchokes, leafy chard, peas, herbs, and the tomatoes were hanging off the vines…and all of this was on my deck, not 3 feet from my front door.
Went to work one Thursday morning and visited all the plants on my way out the door. They were lookin’ good — full, lush. I was finally going to get a harvest! Came home that evening and everything, and I mean everything (except the sage, rosemary and parsley) was eaten down to about 3 inches of stem. All the beans, chard, peas, tomatoes and plants, chokes…the whole shebang…chewed off by a mamma doe and her two frisky fawns who’ve been hanging around, and who I NEVER thought would come within 3 ft. of the front door to steal the garden goodies. Sigh.
With nice summer weather being so sporadic and fall already beginning, and no harvest, I feel like I’m in some kind of time warp. Leaves are already turning on the maple outside my window.
