The trials and tribulations of gardening.
I planted my small vegetable garden, as usual, in early May. Mostly green beans which I freeze for use all year and tomatoes which we eat as they ripen and also to can pasta sauce and some chili. I also plant some other veggies - cukes, eggplant, zucchini and melons.
This was my garden shortly after planting.
Then one day, the zucchini disappeared. The next day, the eggplant. And then the cukes and the melons
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I had also planted sunflowers in between the cherry tomatoes. Do you see them? Me neither. Gone. Eaten right down to the ground.
And then, one evening, I saw it. The rabbit. Happily dining at the buffet.
I have never had this problem before and the garden is surrounded by a chain link fence. But then I realized what had changed. My dog died in March. And although she was too old to catch a rabbit, I’m sure she was able to chase them out of the yard. Or maybe just her smell kept them away.
I have now surrounded the garden with a layer of chicken wire. I planted a second seeding of beans although, unless we have a very late frost, I doubt there will be time for them to mature. Fingers crossed. I still have some green tomatoes ripening, but not enough to put up all the sauce I usually make to get us through the year. Zucchini, cukes and melons will have to be purchased at a farmer’s market.
Squirrels usually eat most of the fruit on my apple, plum and peach trees. Now rabbits have decimated the veggies. I don’t know how pioneering folk ever survived, nor how today's farmers are navigating the devastating impacts of climate change. I am now keenly aware of what it takes to be able to provide food. If I had to depend on my own garden, I would definitely starve.
