Friday, September 23, 2011

A sad story with a happy ending

It takes a lot of faith for me to plant a garden, because up until this morning, I didn't really believe garden's actually grew. Mine never have. Ever. (ok, not that I've had that many.)  We had harvested some radishes, but grasshoppers harvested everything else in our box. Our broccoli didn't make it above 2 inches. Our cucumbers because the daily "resting" spot for little beagle on his walk. gross. (I almost put out a sign for said beagle's owner, but decided against it last minute.) One of the 4 zucchini plants obviously wasn't going to make it and the others were more like baby dwarf zucchini plants, if there even is such a thing. The crookneck were slightly larger, but that's not saying much.

Derek and I decided that it was just good enough this year that we made a real effort. The prophet said plant a garden and that is what we did. Nobody becomes a master gardener over night, anyway. I had kept the plants alive all summer, and that is really saying something.  Our awesome ward started a "farmer's market" where all the neighbors who do have producing gardens can donate their surplus and those of us who don't can come pick it up. Brilliant idea. See, hadn't we been blessed with fabulous fresh garden produce anyway? We had been blessed for our efforts. I was started to feel ok about things.

And then... our 3 tomato plants started blooming and eventually those little blooms started turning into little green marbles. From the 3 plants (none of which, by the way, were taller than maybe 18 inches) we harvested 3 tomatoes and were eagerly awaiting the 4th and 5th. I could hardly wait! Just one more day... until we walked up the driveway on that sad Monday morning. The plants just didn't look the same. They were somehow... smaller?  Much smaller.

Deer.

I was very very sad. I'm not even joking. I felt awful. The deer did not even leave one little green marble. Why my tomatoes? Julie down the street has a gazillion tomatoes, all big and plump and red and juicy. I know because she gave me about 15 the other day to make up for my sad, sad harvest. Why me?

Well, little deer, you cannot defeat the Mocks. Come after us, and we will just grow back bigger and better and stronger. Take this!

TWO zucchini!

take that!

and that!

(This is a fertilized cucumber. We might leave it right there)

Oh yes! 4 little marbles. There are more where that came from.
And I know.  The deer will probably get these little guys too. (unless somehow I can steer them to Julie's garden...)

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