Putting out lettuce and brassicas. Will plant peas where the onions are, altho my fall peas never do well.
August is fall planting time here
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It is a nice big tomato, I put everything in the photo except for one habanero and one scorpion into a fresh salsa with some onions and seasoning, it is very good.
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My onions are close, but not ready yet. Super huge monsters this year. Unlike my garlic which was just normal and early! I pulled the garlic at the right time, the wrappers are perfect!
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It depends on the weather - I don’t want to court rot if we get more wet
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We have hardly had any rain, it keeps slipping south of us. It did rain today about an 1/8 inch. Not much. Maybe a 1/4, the ground is bone dry, enough rain to create some dust.
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We were like that all July, the drought map showed it creeping up on us - and when rain came in buckets to north or south, it managed to miss us until this week
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Our cukes are starting to crank it up, we’ve picked about 10 of them the last few days, and there’s more tiny ones. After the deer left them alone enough, they’ve had a chance to vine out. The bumblebees are loving all the blooms. We may have to start pickling some soon.
I’ve picked some various peppers as well, the plants are getting really big. I’ve had to stake the bigger ones. I picked a pepperoncini and what I thought was a mild banana pepper. The banana, to my surprise was hot! Guess I miss-labeled it. There’s also what I thought was a Quadrato d’Asti bell that apparently is pumping out short banana types.
The tomatoes are becoming a jungle, I can’t walk between some of them. I planted them 4ft apart, and it’s still not enough. But I’m not complaining. All the plants are really pumping out the fruit, maybe the fert gave them a little boost. But, there’s not really many getting ripe just yet. So, its a race between keeping the deer out and staying ahead of disease. The hot weather seems to have put the kibosh on that for now.
Beans are doing great, and the corn is over 4ft now. We’re going to put up posts for bean trellising today, since it’s such a nice day.
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Well, I guess the deer heard me talking about all the fruit on my tomato plants yesterday. On my daily inspection of the patch, it looks like both our loaded Cream Sausage plants were pretty much cleaned off, two of the three Pink Honey plants were mostly stripped, and an orange Beefsteak, and Indian Stripe had noticeable thefts.
Yes, we have 38 other plants that were OK, plus the peppers, but we really would like to have tried those others. They can re-bloom and produce later, but we’re almost to August and there won’t be enough time to harvest ripened fruit. And that is if the deer don’t mess with them then. I saw the lower broken line on the inner fishing line fence so I guess that’s where it was breached. So, guess I’ll need to bolster that up. We went about two weeks without any attacks, so I don’t know of they’ll be back or not. I always hold my breath when I go out there every day. Our cukes got hit lightly yesterday, but they just seem to go after the leaves and not the cukes.
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The Doodette picked about a pound of Striped half-runners yesterday, and we had some for supper. They were OK, I think I like the white version better, but they’re not ready yet, nor the Rattlesnake beans.
We put up T-posts on all three lines of beans and run some of wire clothes line between the posts. Today, we’ll drop twine lines from the wire line for the plants to vine up.
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I was outside a couple hours ago tending to the tomato line fence, and noticed a couple more plants that had been hit in addition to the other six.
Since they hit that patch, I thought I’d better check the strawberry patch, and saw maybe 8 of the Jewel plants are missing leaves, and 3 or 4 of the Earliglow. I can’t say for sure deer did this as the weeds and grass are filling that area in, and I don’t know why they’d even notice them. It could be rabbits, but either way, it’s frustrating regardless.
I’m almost to the point of not trying to grow anything. I put more energy and money into plot protection than maintenance. It’s too d@∆^ hot to be out there every day working on fencing when I should be weeding, staking and mulching.
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You need a real deer fence. I helped my buddy build one last winter around his orchard. Eight ft tall and built like Fort Knox, well sorta, from old galvanized fencing.
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Yep, I discussed this with the wife, and we may have to scale down our veggie expectations. Next year we may just do one large plot and use real fencing for it. Must grow crops would be beans, corn, tomatoes, cukes and potatoes. It’d be a huge plot, but easier to maintain and protect.
But, that doesn’t address the fruit trees and plants scattered about the farm. We can’t afford to fence in three acres. All the fruit trees are enclosed in circular fencing for now. Eventually they will outgrow that fencing, so it’ll have to be expanded outwards.
The problem is just too many deer. They have just overwhelmed this area. Some folks here don’t even go thru the bother of growing gardens because of them.
Probably their #1 predator, coyotes, have been hunted down to almost nothing. There are no big cats here, like cougars, just some wildcats, and no bears, not that they would go after deer. Plus, there are less people in this community compared with just ten years ago.
Hunting season is about 3 months for bow, and just a couple of weeks for modern rifle. We are allowed four apiece, with one antlered deer max. We are on the edge area of no limit on does per season. So, I don’t know if it’d make a difference.
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You can also try chemical repellent for the deer (and rabbits). I used to spray with fish emulsion for this purpose. As long as it stayed on the plants the deer and most critters would not touch them, and it added a bit of fertilizer. Unfortunately it does come off in rain, which is typically less of a problem here than back where you are. Oh, and if you don’t like the smell of fish, it may keep you out of the garden too.
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I have battled the same problem and the time, effort, and money is hard to tally up.
I did/do the same thing on the smaller trees, putting fence up that is good for a year or two, then having to expand it. It’s a pain to mow around, and then have to weed-whack inside (or undo the fencing to weed-whack and then re-affix to the steel T-posts.
This year I finally grew weary of that and removed all the individual fencing from my eight peach trees and fenced all the way around the whole area with 5’ fencing. The deer could jump it if they wanted to, but they don’t. The only time I’ve had deer in my orchard since putting up the 5’ fence is when I leave the gate open 
But I actually removed some fence around my CJ area last fall, thinking they were big enough that what little the deer browsed wouldn’t make a dent… Wrong!!!
So then as a stop-gap at that time, I also tried the fishing line trick. Seemed to work for a few days, then I’d look out there and see deer right there next to the CJ’s nibbling away. It was time to re-string the fence…
My garden area has been enclosed with fence FOR EVER!!! Again, I get by with a 5’ fence here as well. But I know they can clear the fence if they want to, because I drove down here a few years ago and surprised a small group of them messing around. The all ran off like a shot, jumped the garden fence in their escape and were out of sight ASAP. Lucky it was past garden season, but it just happened that the garden was in the way of the straightest line to the timber so…
But as far as protecting your investment from deer I think you bite the bullet and get to fencing. You don’t need to buy Red-Brand or other high dollar fence (Although I did for my garden since the cheaper or lighter gauge fence I found can’t withstand a string trimmer - it’ll actually tear the fence) the lighter stuff will work just as well since you’re only trying to deter deer and you’re not dealing with cattle or hogs.
I bet I have close to 200 steel posts though, and when I think that at around say $3.50 to $4.00 each — you have to work a little OT even before you go to buying fence 
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Thanks for the suggestions. Before dark, I went down to the tom patch and sprayed some liquid fence (rotten egg spray) on the posts, and around some of the plants. And, I bolstered the fence a bit more by adding an X pattern between posts, instead of the usual parallel lines.
I don’t know if it’ll work or for how long, but I don’t know what else to do for now. I felt really defeated today to the point of just not growing anything any more. It wasn’t just today’s happenings, but it’s just a pattern we go thru every year. And this is before any of our fruit trees and plants have even fruited.
I went to church this evening, and afterwards I chatted with some folks about my animal issues. They all have lived here for many years, and they’ve never seen the deer pressure like it is. One guy said he picked off 4 squirrels who were pilfering some of his apples. He’s also had them clean off his cherry tree. He said he might try an electric fence next year, and if that doesn’t keep the deer out, he’s done with gardening. I know I’m just repeating what I’ve said earlier.
As mentioned before, I use the circular fences around the trees. I’ve been very lax in keeping the weeds and grass out of the inside. I should do it when I mow, but don’t. It’s supposed to be not as humid next week so I’ll get to weeding and mulching those trees.
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Plant skydd is supposed to be one of the better deer repellents. I would also try Milorganite, 13 bucks for a huge bag. Approved for gardens now if you can get past the fact it’s from humans. I use it in occasion, as it’s the best for my grass, and near the end of the season, the fertilizers are getting low to completely gone. Now is about the time I stop using fertilizer but I’m in Zone 5b.
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Maybe we should start a letter-writing campaign to have the hunting season extended. The deer overpopulation seems to be a nationwide problem. It is also affecting song bird populations, spreading Lyme Disease, discouraging flower growing and beautification efforts, affecting native plant populations, causing vehicular accidents, among other problems. Most hunters would be happy for a longer hunting season or additional tag permit.To whom would we write? The DNR?
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My wife went out this morning to the patch and said that she thought that there was some new damage, along with some branches with fruit laying on the ground with bites on them. I said I don’t know if it would be new or not, and said I don’t really care at this point. I’m not trying to be harsh to her, it’s just beyond frustrating.
So, I went to check it out and saw fresh green bites, and some more missing fruit. The damage seemed limited to just maybe 2 or 3 plants, but we can’t afford this kind of attrition.
The fencing looks intact, so I assume they’re jumping in and out of the patch. I yelled at a small deer outside our tater patch about 10, and when I went down to the barn I heard snorting and two big does bounding back across the pasture.
I’m done with this. I’ve done about all I can do with it other than put up a six foot fence, which I’m not going to do this year. As I said before, in the future we may just have to grow just essential veggies we want in a large plot, and fence that in, maybe with electric fencing.
The good news is that our corn and bean patch looks good, haven’t seen any major browsing there, and we’ve already picked some half runner beans. The corn is about 5ft tall, and is just starting to tassel. The cuke plot looks like it’s OK, and producing a handful of cukes every day. Today, if it stops raining, I’m going to drop lines from the wire we strung between posts for the beans to climb up.
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I agree. They need to be culled. I mentioned in another thread that just west of us, there is no doe limit during modern rifle season. That needs to be extended to our region. But getting them during the season is problematic, as they tend to withdrawal as the short season progresses. It should be extended to a month.
Folks around here have high insurance premiums, which I suspect is from deer collisions. My in laws have had two claims in the last few years just because of this. You have to really pay attention around here while driving, especially at twilight because of them. We encountered some in the road around 10 o’clock the other day, so you never know when you’ll meet one.
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My brother-in-law grows a fairly large sweet corn patch and he initially left it un-fenced until he saw damage. Then he put up electric fence one low at about 8", and then a higher strand at maybe 3’. The deer were still damaging the edge rows, and would occasionally jump in, so he strung a third single line out away from the other two maybe a couple feet and that stopped them. He said he thinks they are unsure what’s on the other side if having to jump that far. I was over to pick enough corn to can a few days ago and the stand was untouched, even though you could see deer tracks outside the fence in the mud.
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