Back Off, Deer!

Remember last week when I told you that we would be planting strawberries over the weekend? And remember how I told you that it turned cold over the weekend?

Well, the cold weather turned the "we" into a "me". I knew that the strawberry plants were supposed to go in the ground last weekend. So, on Friday I stopped by a local Farmer's Market and picked up six strawberry plants. (I also have eight 'bare root' plants that I picked up at Lowe's last week...but those are in peat pots for now.)

Saturday morning we awoke to a very wet and blustery day. But I was NOT to be deterred! The book said plant strawberries, so I planted strawberries! I have a small flower bed in the back where I planted the irises from Lea Ann last year. They only took up half the bed so I planted some wildflower seeds. But those only took up a quarter of the bed...so I decided to put my strawberries out there to finish filling it in. (Plus, I will not have to stretch the garden hose across the front yard to my former strawberry bed anymore!)

Don't they look nice? I had two plants that survived the deer and the freezing temperatures in the front bed, so I moved them over to this bed too.
See my beautiful irises coming up on the left? The wildflowers are on the front right corner.

Though I really wanted to plant my strawberries here, I was a little worried about the deer. The more I thought about it, the more worried I became that I might not have strawberries come morning. After all, this is toward the back of the property where the deer travel.

They are brave little boogers! Last year a little one and I had a front yard face off over who was going to get the strawberries one late afternoon.

So, I took the idea of a cold frame and made it into a deer frame.

Now they can't eat my strawberries. And hopefully neither can the birds.

This weekend we are scheduled to plant some seeds...and maybe set out the Arkansas Travelers I found at the Farmers Market. (I'm very excited to have found them. Now if I could only find a few Bradley tomatoes!) We are thinking broccoli and green beans, for sure. Not sure what else as most of it calls for us to wait one more weekend. We'll see if we can contain ourselves!