Fall Crops

The garden season of 2021 is finally over and there is nothing good to report about it. Every year I struggle to create a nice patch of vegetables and always some circumstance wipes it all away. One year it was rabbits and ground squirrels, another year drought and spotty watering on my end, one year I planted too late, another year pests ate it up, and then there are the deer. Always the deer harassing and eating everything in sight. They are greedy bastards who trample what they don’t like, and waste what they do. Ever witness dozens of tomatoes ruined because of a single bite taken out of them? I have, and it is devastating.

I live in a place where there is a lot of private property but very little deer hunting and that has allowed the deer population to get out of hand. They are eating everything they can find – ornamental plants, young trees, and of course garden vegetables. After a neighbor removed her side of the fence right when my vegetables were taking off, the deer rushed in unabated and ate everything they could find. My pumpkin garden destroyed. Beans devoured. Squash blossoms clipped before they could even fruit.

I decided to lick my wounds and make one last attempt at getting something out of my garden by planting a fall vegetable. I decided to go with cabbage. I bought a ton of starters on sale at Home Depot and put them in during a day off from work. I am not sure what will happen with them. I am assuming I’ll get a head or two later in the year. I asked around, and most others are not aware you could plant cabbages in this area during the fall and expect success. However, they also admit they’ve not tried it. I assume it’s possible. Europeans did it. Cabbage is a cold weather crop. Maybe it fares better south of here, and maybe I’ll luck out and we’ll have a mild winter as expected. I am not sure, but I will give it a chance.

Planting a garden is a great family exercise. Our boys help pick out rocks, water the plants, and work through measuring out the row lines. When we do get vegetables we pick them together and cook them for dinner. They take great pride in this, although they rarely eat the vegetables!

I will keep trying in 2022. I installed a new fence. It is slightly higher than the old fence. I will probably put up deer netting in the spring. Since the fence is now mine, I can fasten posts to it to accommodate a temporary fence. I also moved the garden plot back after realizing one day, while working from home, that the sun did not extend into a quarter of the area I set aside, thus solving why the front end of the garden grows so poorly (limited sunlight).

Here’s to cabbage this year!