I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
The Mystery of the Missing Cucumbers
At the beginning of summer, I was absolutely craving cucumbers so we bought a couple plants. All summer long, I have been waiting for cucumbers to ripen. When one ripened, I would carefully carry it into the kitchen, cut it into slices, sprinkle the slices with salt and pepper, and savor each delicious mouthful.
Every few days I’d walk out to the garden to see if any more had ripened. Sometimes I felt a bit confused because I thought there had been more growing than I found. I thought, “Huh. I must have miscounted.” I was just thinking this morning that I was very disappointed in the number of cucumbers we had this year.
Then I discovered that I have not been miscounting at all. I happened to glance out of our bedroom window this afternoon and saw the criminal mastermind and her two apprentices.
While I watched, the deer also ate our sunflower plant. Not a huge loss because there wasn’t even a flower on it yet, and there’s not enough time left this summer for there to be one, but still….I suppose that at least we can find the vulnerabilities in our garden and try to tighten up security for next year.
This is likely the same doe who warned me away from her fawns when I encountered them at Rabbit Meadow at the end of June. This is the clearest view I have had of the fawns. I love watching the deer…even if they steal from the garden.
While I was out in the garden this afternoon, I discovered a few more thieves. I had to laugh when I saw them. They think they are being so sneaky, but they are really quite bumbling and obvious.
Why is it that the “beneficial” critters are ugly and scary like Shelob, and the thieves are so adorable that I have to resist hugging them and giving them everything they want?
I Love To Go A Gardening 
Very good! You caught the thieves red handed! Great video, too. How long did it take to upload? I have done it a couple of times and it took HOURS! The last one I took wouldn’t even upload.
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Thanks! I didn’t pay attention to the time it took the video to upload–I went off and did other things. But it usually doesn’t take an excessive amount of time to upload videos. Maybe 10-15 minutes?
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WOW! It takes mine HOURS for just a couple of minutes.
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That’s CRAZY!
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We had problems with deer last year. I didn’t catch them but knew when the sunflower leaves had bits in them. They would come into the garden and not even touch the tomatoes or beans, but I saw the hoof prints each time there was a rain. I think maybe a hunter eliminated the problem this year. Sad, but nice to eat the cucumbers ourselves. Good luck figuring out what you will do to save yours for yourselves.
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Our garden is fenced in so we don’t really have a problem with the deer. They were able to eat the cukes because they grew up on the fence. And the sunflowers were outside the fence because we didn’t know where else to put them. We will have a winter to think of what to do differently. 🙂
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Well we had a fence at the time they ate at ours. It looked like they just hopped in and out. Good luck!!
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I’m hoping they don’t hop ours!!!
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