Alissa's All-Night Salad Bar is Open For Business

I don’t do much gardening. I live in deer country, so you have to be pretty devoted to the hobby to even attempt trying to grow things in your yard around these parts. I mean, the farms surrounding us invest some serious cash in fencing and other deer deterrents, and even that’s not enough to keep out the most determined of deer.

I pretty much limit my gardening efforts to maintaining four flower pots on our patio, and let me tell you, even that’s a challenge. Last year was my first year living here and doing my best with the patio flower pots. Mistakes were made, but I like to think I’m the sort of person that can learn from her mistakes. For example after getting off to a rough start last year, I figured out that the best things to grow in the shady flower pots close to the house are a combination of coleus and impatiens, and I’m happy to report that this year these pots are looking pretty good. Here’s some photographic proof:

These flower pots have the advantage of being right up against the house (ignore the trim and house that are badly in need of painting), which means that deer would have to walk across the patio to get to them, and so far the local fauna have not proven to be that intrepid, but honestly, who knows with these culinary daredevils.

For the flower pots that are on the front lines (aka right where the patio meets the yard) I knew that I was going to have to contend with hungry deer. So, this year I tried to be a bit more mindful about what I planted there. Specifically I did some internet research on what plants liked the full sun and also were supposed to be “deer resistant” so that I could plant those at the edges of the pot. I ended up selecting some heliotrope and lantana and planted those around the edges of the pot and then filled in the pots with some more coleus and also some vinca. (They’re very large flower pots.)

And guess what? It seemed to be working. I did notice here and there some nibbling going on, but it was nothing like the feasting I witnessed last year and nothing like the absolute carnage they inflicted on the lilies that I attempted to plant in the yard. So far, two lily flowers were allowed to briefly bloom before being devoured, but this photo collage shows the present state of the lilies in the yard:

So, anyway, I was feeling pretty cocky about my front lines flower pots and how well they were doing, besides a few nibbles here and there, the plants were mostly being left alone. Did I think to take a “before” picture to show off the lush flower pots? No, why would I do that? These flower pots were looking great and they were going to be going strong all summer. Last week I was doing a mini photo shoot of some greeting cards I designed for my Zazzle store a couple of which used one of the front line flower pots as a background. So I present these to you as exhibit A:

If you look beyond the cards, you can tell that this flower pot is really lush with plants, and doing quite well, and that’s how it looked until sometime overnight, when apparently word got out that Alissa’s all-night salad bar was open for business. Because when I went out there this morning this was the scene that greeted me:

I mean, I guess I should be thankful that they didn’t completely wipe everything out, but that flower pot was looking pretty sad and pititful this morning. When I was a kid, we used to spend many a summer day at my grandmother’s vacation home in the Poconos where she used to fill a deer feeder in her yard with corn, and where she taught us how to have deer eat directly out of our hands by cupping our hand and filling it with the dried corn. So, I guess in a way I’m continuing that tradition of keeping the local deer well-fed.

While a starving animal is certainly a sad thing, I can assure you that in the middle of July none of the local deer are wanting for food. With a yard full of grass and clover surrounded by edible trees, bushes, wildflowers and weeds there is an abundant amount of food for the local fauna to eat, but I guess some of the deer have decided to expand their culinary palates and sample the tasty gourmet delicacies available on the patio.

Sure, there are different strategies for keeping the deer away, (I know of at least one determined gardener who spends a decent amount of time banging on metal pots and pans as a way to keep deer out of his yard.) but I’m not exactly a die-hard gardener. I’ll just hope that the chewed down plants can make a comeback, and hope that the deer find something tastier to eat out there.

Thanks for reading, and I hope that you, like the deer in our backyard, are out there living your best life!

— Alissa