Oh Deer!

We've known from the time we moved into this house, more than ten years ago now, that there's a thriving population of deer in the neighborhood. That's why we built a fence around the garden as soon as we finished filling the new beds with soil. For years, the narrow strips of lattice supplemented with taller plastic mesh was enough to keep the deer out of the garden. (It didn't, however keep out the rabbits as reported in posts from 2015, 2020, and last year.) That changed last year when I noticed hoof prints in the beds for the first time. 

Some prints and nibbles on August 3, 2023

At that time, we didn't do anything significant about the intrusion. It seemed to be a one-time thing and didn't effect our harvest for the season. Then, one year later, I noticed again, that one of our four-hoofed acquaintances had found its way into our garden.

Another incursion August 21, 2024

I had assumed that, like the year before, the deer had found its way into the garden by accident. With the fence, the plants, and the wooden paths, I felt like it hadn't intentionally leapt into the visual noise. But, since it was there, it went ahead and sampled what the garden had to offer. There was evidence of nibbling on most of the plants including the cucumbers and tomatoes. The beast mainly enjoyed the leaves on the bean plants, but not the beans themselves, and the Swiss chard. There wasn't a huge amount of damage so, again, I didn't worry about it too much.

When more and more prints appeared in the beds over the next weeks, we decided to take action. Our entire backyard has a slight slope to the south. We built the garden where an above ground pool had been so the north side of the fence is closer to the ground than the south side. I deduced, therefore, that it was the north side over which the deer had been jumping. Furthermore, we have very tall, very bushy asparagus at the east end of the garden along the fence, so the deer must be coming over the western portion. That's where my husband built increased fortification. 

Notice the extra tall white fencing at the left.

For a few weeks, it seemed as though the deer had been thwarted. Then, in early October, more hoof prints appeared. This time, the creature ate nearly all our remaining chard. I found that particularly annoying as leaf miners had gotten into the chard earlier in the season and I had basically given up on it for the season when, at the end of September, the plants started sending up fresh, new leaves. I had hoped for a late harvest but that didn't happen.

One evening, I was in our kitchen making dinner when I happened to look out the window toward our garden. I saw a brown blob inside the fence and knew it was a deer. I grabbed my good camera and quietly rushed outside. I managed to get one picture of the offender - as seen at the top of this post - and a brief video of it fleeing the scene.

I also got a couple pictures of the rogue deer rejoining the rest of the herd in our backyard.

I don't like the example this sets with the little ones.

Several years ago, my husband gave me a game camera for Christmas. I've seen many wonderful animals that I wouldn't have even known were passing through if not for the camera. (check out this compilation I made: "Everyone love the hole under our neighbor's shed") The camera had been facing our middle yard but I moved it into the garden with the hopes of catching a future deer visit. 

When I pulled the memory card a few days later, there were hundreds of images on it. This isn't at all unusual. It actually was fewer images than was typical since there were fewer things moving within the confines of the garden to trigger the camera. We had already cleaned up most of the beds since nearly everything had been harvested at that point. Most of the images were of the remaining plants waving randomly and of squirrels - other frequent visitors to the garden.

Two squirrels at once.

My eyes sort of glazed over as I quickly clicked through the images until a sudden change caught my attention.

!!!

There it was: the trespassing deer staring straight at the camera, eyes all aglow from the infrared flash. And it wasn't just a quick in and out. I have 132 images of the deer wandering through the garden.

At this point, we're not going to enact any new anti-deer measures. We've finally had a frost  - though it wasn't a true killing one - and we've gotten what we want out of the garden. In the spring, when we finish the switchover to new beds, we'll remake the fence as well in the hope that next season the garden will go unmolested. In the meantime, I hope to enjoy more pictures of our backyard wildlife doing their wild things.
 

Strawberry Popcorn

We grew strawberry popcorn this year. It was the corn in our Three Sisters bed. This area is good for corn, but, as a home garden, I wasn't expecting to get much from our little 4-foot by 11-foot bed. I was actually delightfully surprised!

We planted the shiny little red kernels on May 25 with the rest of the garden.

And then we waited. A week later, we had rows of perfect blade-like seedlings.

Two weeks later, the whole bed was really starting to look like something. 

One more week and everything had more than doubled in size.

July came...

...and we just kept waiting. There really wasn't anything else to do. By then, the weeds had slowed considerably so daily maintenance wasn't necessary. When there was heavy rain and/or high winds, we sort of pushed the flattened corn stalks up again, but they more-or-less straightened themselves on their own.

By mid August there was definite progress in ear-development.

Some of the ears seemed odd to me (three in one spot?), but what do I know? This was my first time growing popcorn. A green stink bug seemed okay with it.

As did the bees.

And so there was more waiting as the stalk and ears began to dry.

By early October, I was tired of waiting. Though my patience has greatly improved as I've gotten older, I hit my limit. The majority of the ears were nice and dry so I went for it.

I am now putting shucking popcorn right up there with - well just slightly lower than - shelling beans. It was a beautiful day as I sat on our concrete patio, pulling back the dried husks, and revealing shiny, gorgeous, tiny, red ears of popcorn.

And after shucking ear after ear, I had a lovely surprise: an entirely white ear!

I got 21 shiny ears of strawberry popcorn in all (just the one white one). I strung them up with twine and hung them on our porch so they could dry further. 

I read that it would take about two weeks to fully dry. Of course, that varies by location and weather conditions. So, eight days after hanging the ears, I pulled one down to give it a try.

It was a bit of a struggle to pull the kernels off the cob, so I only did half of the tiny ear.

I put the loose kernels into a paper bag and microwaved them for about two minutes. I could hear tiny explosion but was disappointed by what I found when I opened the bag. The kernels had split open but that was it. My impatience was not rewarded.

So the half-ear of popcorn sat on our kitchen counter next to the last of the season's tomatoes until last night when I decided to try again. This time the kernels practically fell off the cob and made wonderful popping sounds in the microwave. And, lo and behold, we had popcorn!

I plan to leave the other 20 ears hanging on the porch for the next couple of days since we are experiencing 80 degree weather (yuck! The time of summer has past; it's fall now!). If the kernels come off easily, I know they're ready. If not, we'll hang them inside as temperatures will be falling back into the 50s by the end of the week (yay!).

In case anyone is wondering, the corn stalks became fall decor along with some pumpkins and a giant mum I got at my favorite pumpkin-and-mum-buying spot.

The popcorn harvest was just the start of putting the garden to bed for the winter. It's always a bit sad to see the end of fresh veggies, but I'm ready to be done for now. Some locals are not as pleased by the end of our growing season. But that's a story for next time....

Oh Deer!