Chard, Deer, and Laziness

I love Swiss chard. Flavorful leaves. Crunchy stalks. It’s the tasty love child of spinach and Bok Choy. I could eat it every night. Lucky for me, Anna is an expert at both growing and cooking it.

The green leaves with reddish-purple veins finally reach eating size up here this time of year. Anna always plants about half a dozen so that we can take a few leaves from each before dinner and the plant keeps producing (I’ve learned gardeners call that cut-and-come-again). Chard is cold-hardy and will run deep into the fall.

Last week, carrying our little harvest bag, we walked down to the garden into heartbreak.

Apparently deer love Swiss chard too, because this rat bastard cleaned us out.

Nocturnal garden raider

It seemed like a targeted, spiteful hit. The chard box is deep in the garden where alternating shadows during the day keep it cooler than the rest. This guy walked right by the rest of the garden like a tourist in Vegas homing in on the lobster at the all-you-can-eat buffet.

Look at this photo, the chewed-up nubs are the chard. Obviously, he prefers it to kale.

Guess he doesn’t like kale…

Even worse… This devastating wipeout was my fault.

Just the day before, Anna asked me if we should fire up the electric fence. “No,” I told her, scanning the area, taking measure like the seasoned mountain wilderness reader I am. “We can do that this weekend.”

“Okay…”

Once the fence is up, you see, it’s a thing. You gotta unhook it to get in, reconnect it when you leave, and… Okay. Yeah. I was being lazy.

We’ve got more coming up. But it’ll be a month and a half.

Some lessons I have to learn over and over again.

Bastard is lucky deer season isn’t till November.