Soap on a Rope

I've posted before about my pathological desire for a garden this year.  Why pathological?  Because every ounce of advice I've received should convince me to just give up and surrender to the call of the wild, but I still stubbornly push ahead.

I knew from the get-go that I would be battling deer, rabbits, slugs and birds, and they were all truthful warnings.  The slugs have been my biggest threat so far.  They have destroyed a third of my broccoli and some peas and one of my pattypan squash plants the first night it was in the ground.  Something (the birds I think) have eaten every little swiss chard seedling before they can even fully unfold their first set of leaves.  But until now I haven't heard from those notorious deer...

Two days ago I was checking on the fruit trees we planted (2 apple, 2 pear and a cherry) and I saw that their new leaves were all still in tact and growing (yippee!).  So yesterday I had Cannon take the protective covering off the cherry tree because it was impeding the growth.  He came back reporting that one of the apples had the top broken off.  What!?  I went to check and sure enough those flee-flabbin' deer had been in my "orchard"!  Not only had they broken one apple, they had munched the tender leaves of that apple and the cherry.  Grrrr.

Munched leaves

So I went on "deer defense" - I grabbed my large bottle of stinky, nasty deer-repellent and hosed those trees. 

Then Cannon got in on the act and decided to build a deer fence out of fishing wire (he thought they would not like the feel of it).  So we strung a triple-layer barrier of fishing wire around the perimeter of the trees. 

And then I put a big piece of chicken wire between some of the trees because I read that deer don't like the feel of chicken wire under their feet. 

And then, because I was on all-out deer defense mode, I marched upstairs and grabbed 5 bars of soap, drilled holes through them and strung one from each tree (I had also read that deer don't like the smell of soap because it smells like humans). 

So my tranquil, idyllic orchard now looks like a voo-doo doctor's junk yard.  All I have to say is that those deer better not come back!

On the flip side, the lettuce growing in a tub on my deck is doing GREAT!  Guess those bunnies haven't figured out how to climb stairs.