I stopped at a tiny landscape nursery on the way home from work last spring to see if they had anything to feed my dying magnolia tree. I asked the guy working there what vegie plants he had because the sign said they had herbs. He took me over to a small table and had some nice size tomato plants. They were called Mr. Stripey so I got a pack because that’s a fun name. I usually only have room for one variety, but since I couldn’t find leeks anywhere, I filled my leek bed with tomatoes, including an Early Girl and a few others. I looked online and learned that Mr. Stripey aren’t very acidic, so I also planted some acidic tomatoes in case I have enough for canning. You want a fairly acidic batch of tomatoes when canning so you don’t have to add vinegar. I don’t like opening a jar of homemade tomatoes in the winter and smelling vinegar.
Evan helped me get everything planted and was diligent about watering, but right when the plants started taking off, the deer ate the tomatoes down to stubs. Only one carrot plant came up and the squirrels and rabbits ate it along with the eggplant, snap peas, and squash – and most plants were inside a crop cage. I patched all the openings with burlap and duct tape, but they chewed new holes. One night they snuck out a full-size squash I was just about to pick. At some point in the summer, I guess the neighborhood was plentiful enough with plants that the animals moved on, and two tomato and two squash plants recovered. But now it’s September and my few tomatoes are still green. Luckily we got a nice basket of farm tomatoes to tie us over.
If you didn’t read my question to a farmer one time on how to keep the animals from eating all my garden plants, his answer was, “Plant more.”
