You can also put a collar (like a paper cup with the bottom cut out) around the stalk to keep off whatever it is that comes up from the ground and climbs the stalk to eat. Obviously, I don’t know enough about it yet to offer better words. But I had an issue with little green worms (moths?) earlier and looked online. (I hate even seeing the pix.) Never before, but I’ve seen them around the neighborhood this season.
Deer. My whole back yard is fenced and they just hop over. Even the dogs don’t bother them. I watched them one afternoon jumping back and forth over the wire fences my neighbor put up.
I now have ducks in my neighborhood. I’m on the corner lot so I’m sure they fly in my yard because when it’s wet, I saw foot prints that I almost thought that was a first sighting of “Bigfoot”, but it turned out I saw ducks, more likely. There are still more animals eating my ripen tomato. Not sure what kind.
On the gardening front, I pulled my artichoke plants and planted some Chatentais melon from scratch, I found my candytuft flowers that I’ve sawn from seeds came up, they are mighty pretty, little flowers. My husband is out there building the next trellis to train the stephanotis, the wedding flower that smells so good, and for the roses to cover my cement wall.
I’ve tons of strawberries and jalapeño peppers. I just wish the progress of my yard is not so slow.
Bush beans! So productive and easy to plant that you’ll have the neighbors coming by with bags to have for their dinners, too.
The new stuff that I tried this spring season appears to have made a positive impact so far. I put mycorrhizae, bone meal and azomite in the planting holes and the seedlings have shown good growth.
I just picked my first garden strawberry. Nice and just like store bought. There were some plants with smaller fruit size but still nice with chocolate hazelnut. I also picked my last batch of artichokes and are boiling them for lunch.
Picked 2 nice Persian cucumbers this morning. It’s like treasuries hunting in the morning, I never know what I’m going to get.
I have one flower on one of my tomato plants but that’s it. At least it wasn’t eaten by the deer that was on my deck the other morning. H was up early and heard a thud - looked up and this mama deer was happily munching away on the huge spider plant I am taking care of for my neighbor while she is away. It now looks like it’s gotten a mullet. 
Meantime, I suspect my rich (and light) garden soil is leading to great root development. Not seeing such great growth above.
Went to my garden today. Broccoli: Critters 1, me 0. Cauliflower: Critters 1, me 0. Peas/Green Beans: Critters 1, me 0. And my MOST favorite: Beets: Critters, 1, me 0.
Tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and squash all look great. Some little peppers forming, some green tomatoes. Clearly, the critters (most likely bunnies) don’t like these plants!
Needless to say, today’s job was putting up chicken wire. Apparently I am not very coordinated because this was a difficult task to accomplish myself and make it look not so awful! Three buckets of sweat later, got the chicken wire up and trimmed to not look too obnoxious.
Question: The beets and broccoli still have a few leaves on them - they stems and all still look healthy. Might they bounce back and rebound???
In my raised bed, I also put a big plant hook (sprayed a light yellow) and a hanging basket with moss that I have put one ivy geranium for color and then some lemon thyme and greek oregano. It looks SWEET! Like that it gives the garden some height.
My zinnia on two sides of the garden all are doing good so far. Will need to thin them out soon.
Got lots of pears, apples, peaches, blueberries and a few strawberries. Waiting to see how long it would take chipmunks to find them out. My cottage garden is working out beautifully. Delphiniums, foxgloves, penstemons, masterworts… Roses were eaten up by deer.
Abasket, I think your beets still have a chance. Not sure about the broccoli. I wonder if you could leave it as is and see what happens.
Packman may grow side shoots after you cut off the central head. Question is if enough leaves are left to keep the plant going.
BB, that’s what I plan to do. I’ll just let them go a couple of weeks and see if they progress. If not, I’ll pull them and still have time to plant something else.
Dang it, those beet greens are my favorite!!!
(And the name of my garden - at our community garden, everyone “names” their garden and we have cute garden name stakes. Mine is “In A Heart Beet”. I had been on the waiting list for 4 years to get a plot - when they called me to offer one, I took it - in a heart beat (beet!)!!!
I’ve got lots of peppers, somehow there was a mislabel of the plant and I thought I bought jalapeño pepper but it turned out to be banana pepper. So I picked them and make lamb stew with onions and garden tomatoes with okras. I wish I have some garden okra but have not got time to sprout them.
What came as a surprised to me is that I’ve found 6 baby plants of cherimoya, sprouted from seeds that I had eaten. Somehow the compost pile helped them sprouted. I’m going to reallocate them somewhere, probably espalier them. I rarely grow any fruit tree from seeds but I’ve googled and this is one type of fruit that it takes about 3-4 years from seeds.
I also found out that through my morning garden tour, I didn’t kill my giant Korean pear, the tree sprouts young leaves. A few weeks ago when I moved the tree, I made sure to add blood meal to the soil for leaves production and sure enough it worked.
Geez, peppers. I’m growing an Anaheim pepper because I only like them if they’re mildly hot. I ate a tiny piece and it nearly killed me! I spent the next hour drooling from the ice cubes I had stuffed into my mouth. Hours later, while flossing my teeth, enough of the hotness chemical was still on my fingers to make my lips burn! Be wary. You can never tell what a hot pepper will be like.
Are you sure you have Anaheim pepper, it shouldn’t be that hot.
It looked like one, although a bit small, but we’ve had so much rain that everything is a bit different than usual. Of course it was labelled Anaheim too, but you’ve raised an interesting question…
Come to think about it, the one I thought I bought was labeled Anaheim chili and it turned out to be banana pepper. I’ve noticed that lately, I bought six pack of Persian cucumber and there was 2 plants of for pickle cucumber, which surprised me when I picked them. I don’t recall buying them because I don’t like pickle cucumber.
I’ll never forget early in my gardening career…I was doing a couple of potted veggies on the deck. Bought a plant labeled “jalapeno” - perfect! Just what I was looking for!
I noticed that the shape and color of the growing fruit was NOT like a jalapeno - but that’s what the label stick said, so it must be right, RIGHT??! I plucked one off and chopped it up and put it in some stir fried vegetables. That sucker was a habanero pepper!!! Why did I not clue into that?! I was SO sure that the variety on the pot stick must be right!!! About burned my mouth out!!!
They look very different don’t they? Habeneros are small and orange and jalapeños are green and tubular. I grew a variety called “fooled you” that looked just like a jalapeño but with no heat. It was boring.