The little holes on the leaves don’t bother me, and since I’m not trying to sell my vegetables, there are no buyers to bother either. The leaves were likely visited by snails and slugs which have descended on my garden in hordes. I don’t mind sharing these giant leaves of chard which are growing way beyond our ability to eat them. I felt less generous when they exterminated my broccoli and spinach seedlings, lovingly raised indoors on our window sill in early spring. A week after I transplanted them into the garden, it was as if they had never existed. Now this was rather stupid of the slugs. There is less for them, and nothing for me. It drives me towards getting ducks, which will spare far fewer of them than I do with my scissors and boots.
If only they were like the scouting bandits in the opening scene of Seven Samurai. Watched by two quaking, hiding peasants, the bandits see that the crop hasn’t ripened yet and decide to return later in the year. This is what I figured the deer were doing in spring when the motion-activated lights around the house were going off while I lay insomniac in bed. Now, in the middle of summer, we see a white tail skipping into the goldenrods here, a fawn and mother there. How long will the 6+ foot fence deter them? Depends on how hungry they get.
