When Something Has Been Eating Your Garden, Bring In The Dogs!

For Mother’s Day the kids built me a raised vegetable garden on the side of the house.

I have wanted a vegetable garden for quite some time now and obviously I can’t have a vegetable garden in the backyard because the dogs would pee all over it.

The side of the house is perfect for my garden. It gets plenty of sun and the dogs don’t have access to it.

The kids planted me regular beefsteak tomatoes, cucumbers, and cherry tomatoes. I added green pepper plants in for Gibby.

I have been taking such good care of my garden.

I water it everyday and I even pull the weeds in it.

I don’t pull the weeds outside of the garden but I pull the weeds inside the garden. I don’t want to overdo it and cause my hand to get a cramp. You know what I mean.

My garden has been doing awesome.

My tomatoes plants are about as tall as me and I had my first green peppers the other day.

I was so proud of the peppers that I cut them up and served them at my party last weekend.

I served them in little dixie cups that had dip at the bottom. This way instead of having a veggie tray where everyone was double dipping, each person had their own little cup of dip and they could double dip as much as they wanted!

I cut the other pepper up for Gibby. He loved it.

Anyway, the other night I went out to water the garden and this is what I saw:

Something ate both my pepper plants!

I know who it was.

It was her.

I know it was her because she has been hanging around the house lately with her little entourage.

She usually eats my neighbor’s trees, which is fine with me, but now she’s in my territory. She’s not just eating the pepper plant, she’s also munching on the cucumber plants and I’m pretty sure she took a bite or two out of the tomato plant.

She may be pretty, but I have a problem with her.

I was willing to let one pepper plant go, but not two, and I will not sacrifice another plant to her.

So how am I going to stop her from ruining my garden?

Good question.

Here is what the experts say:

Get a dog. Deer are said to be afraid of dogs.

Awesome. I have 3 of them, but 1 will do.

Now what? Keep him in a sit and stay for the rest of the summer?

Several sources said that a dogs scent is a natural repellent for deer, so what I have been doing is walking the dogs in front of the garden several times a day.

I have also been letting them pee around the garden.

Not pee IN the garden, that would be gross. I have been letting them pee around the perimeter of the garden. Many sites stated that coyote urine will repel deer. I don’t have a coyote but I have dogs.

Close enough, right?

We’ll see.

I even left a bowl of dog pee sitting right outside the garden.

Yes……I had Leroy pee in a bowl.

He didn’t mind.

Pretty ironic that I wanted a garden somewhere where the dogs couldn’t pee on it and now I am using their pee to warn off deer.

Sorry if that was too much information.

Anyway, I also put a pinwheel in the garden and a nightlight motion detector.

Pretty scary right?

We’ll see.

I’ll let you know next week how this all works out for me and the deer, maybe sooner if she eats the rest of my garden!

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