We have a garden but sometimes, I wonder why we bother. Sometimes it seems that no matter what we plant, there's something around here that will work harder to eat it than we can work to produce it. As an example, this is the story with tomatoes. We need as many letters after the variety name as possible, 'cause we have nematodes and all manner of diseases here. At least the deer and rabbits don't (usually) eat tomato vines, though we do have flea beetles, potato beetles, whiteflies, hornworms - you get the picture. A lot of the fruit winds up cracking before it ripens, but that almost doesn't matter, because I can't let tomatoes ripen on the vine, anyway. The birds and squirrels have discovered how tasty those red things are. I have to pick tomatoes as they start to turn, and let them ripen on my kitchen counter. If anything gets more than a little bit pink out there, it'll be munched or at least pecked at. I once found a box turtle chowing down on a low hanging tomato! Damaged or otherwise spoiled veg often gets tossed to the chickens or goats (nothing really nasty, of course!). Over the course of the growing season, I swear they eat more stuff out of the garden than we do!
On the up side, there's always something to watch from the windows!
