Tragic

There have been numerous violations at the BBOP garden in the last few days by the no-longer-cute deer.... just was my mouth was starting to water for the ripening Roma and black cherry tomatoes, a deer figured out how to hop the fence. Twice...once from each side of the garden. The riggers spotted one of the culprits having breakfast in our garden as they drove into work this morning, at which time the deer promptly hopped over the fence out of the garden.

The proof is in the hoof prints (arrows):


Here's the damage:

I guess no green zebra tomatoes (left) this season. and the poor, poor japanese eggplant (right). I wonder why the fruits were left?




A forsaken poblano pepper... I guess the deer don't like these kind of fruits.


And just when the zucchini was starting to recover...



A half-eaten early orange... I guess the fact that it wasn't ripe yet meant that it was okay to leave it...


This is particularly maddening... just when I transplanted the rescued tomatillo into a larger pot, the deer devoured it.



Same tomatillo and the strawberry next to it.



With no regard for the other eggplants, we find that the lovely foliage has been nearly completely consumed. At least they left the fruits. Can eggplants sunburn? The top picture is how I found the eggplant when I arrived this morning...clearly knocked over when the deer hopped into the garden. Evidence of footprints in the nearby squash planter. When I righted the eggplant, it looked so sorry for itself.


This pepper was topped. Well, at least you can see all the lovely fruits.

All-in-all, the damage could have been worse. But, it sets us back a week or so for ripened fruit. I don't know if the green zebra or tomatillo will recover. Let's hope we can get at least one Roma tomato this season.

Better still... let's hope the new blockade will work for the evening. I guess I know what I'll be doing this labor day weekend....construction!