Where Have All the Veggies Gone ?

 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

No trace left.

I

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.