A male deer; an antlered roe unfortunately. I’ve seen him a couple of times recently, since getting in early o’clock to pick the lettuce, spinach, chard, broad beans, courgettes etc before the heat of the morning kicks in. His previous favourite place was lying low in the thick green manure; but now that’s been scythed down, I haven’t seen him since; only footprints and random debris in his wake. A few sweetcorn plants trampled/eaten, the odd parsnip/celeriac leaf nibbled.
However, what nature takes away with one hand, she gives with the other: this deer also seems to have nibbled off the tall tops of the bolting chard, removing the flower heads which will encouraged the plants to produce a few more leaves. Ditto the tops of the seeding fat hen among the parsnips that I hadn’t quite finished weeding. So I suppose I shouldn’t be too cross with the deer. Until the sweetcorn is ready of course; then I’ll really need to take action to keep the blighter away.
Grown Green @ Hartley Farm 