A week in the woods was the death stroke to much of the garden.  Without me here everyday to spray liquid fence or cayenne pepper or soap spray, a good deal of the garden was descimated by critters.  And I mean descimated.  My new green bean patch- gone.  40-some little sticks are poking out to the sky with nary a leaf in sight.  My lettuce was completely shorn off, and most of the beet greens are gone too.  I may get a beet or two yet though.  The newly planted kale was digested by something from the insect world- and that is not a cabbage looper- I know what those are.  The scarlet runner beans had their stems snapped by rough winds, and the pole beans had their stems eaten through about 8 inches up.  I have about 4 pole bean plants still chugging along.

The butternut squash is looking okay, as is the delicata, but there are no fruit yet- as there are no fruit on the pumpkin.  The melons are all growing very slowly, and I don’t expect they will bear fruit, really.  The tomatillos are growing and pushing blossoms, but they’re not getting pollinated and are not setting fruit at all.  The peppers are mostly intact yet, although the fruit they bear is small.

The pots that I recently planted with chard, kale, lettuces and cucumbers have been obliterated by squirrels.  I put fresh dirt in the pots, and the squirrels proceeded to dig, dig, dig.  With a nut tree in the yard, they are constantly looking for places to bury their plunder.  I wish we could get rid of that nut tree.

But then there are these.

Those are on one of my Black From Tula plants.

And these are on one of my Woodle Orange plants.

And this is my Brave General.

Then, as I was tying up a few more branches on one of my plants, I spied this little fella below.

My trusty Sungold that I took from a sucker from those plants in my house.  My Sungold plant gave me my very first ripe tomato.  As I popped this gem into my mouth and savored the delicious pop of the skin and the sweetness of the juice, I experienced promise.  This one little tomato speaks of promises to come.  The rest of my garden may have succumbed to the never-ending parade of squirrels and rabbits, but I will have a tomato harvest.  It may be modest, at best, but I will enjoy tomatoes of all shapes, sizes and colors, and I will enjoy every single one.

In the meantime, plans are being made.  Next years garden will have to have fencing.  In multiple places.  The beds are going up.  We need to get away from tree roots galore, so we’re going up a good foot or so.  Where the existing bed heights are, we will attach fencing in-ground to prevent burrowing critters from digging up.  And then every garden bed will have a fence- and depending on the bed, a system in place for floating row cover as well.  We are trying to decide the best lay-out, but I have to confess, other than the tomatoes, I’m looking forward to starting over.  It’s rather saddening to walk out to the garden and take a peek.  Even my sage plant has met an untimely demise.  How did that happen?  I have no idea, but just like that, the plant is void of life.

Next year, the garden will be wonderful, but for the remainder of this year, I will be concentrating my efforts completely on tending and enjoying the tomato patch.