Deer. They are lovely to look at. They are also a pest and a nuisance. This year they have eaten all my tomato and pepper plants, rosebushes, assorted flowers and shrubs. They multiply rapidly and have no predators here. Your garden is next. I say round them up and deport them to Seward Park or wherever they came from. It was done in the 1950s.

Gordon Mulder

Well, after seeing the photo in today’s MI Reporter, I now know I am not the only one affected by a deer (or two, or three!). On this past Saturday, while checking my growing vegetable garden, I decided to put on the tomato cages. Afterward, I checked the beans thinking that after the 4th, I would put up the poles and also thin the bush beans. Then, a few days later, my daughter and husband said, “Mom, something has been eating in your garden.” Thinking it was perhaps just slugs, I was most surprised and, yes angry, to see that most of my beans were gone, tomato blooms were eaten as well as some of the stems, and my wonderful swiss chard was really demolished! After checking the soil for some markings and deciding it had to be more than rabbits or squirrels, we found prints of a deer’s hoof. After living here since 1963 and growing many vegetable gardens, I never thought a deer would ruin my joy in gardening!

Steps have been taken, tips from the internet, etc. But I am still leery of awakening one day to find, perhaps, my peas and beet greens gone! Where are the raccoons so abundant in the ’60s (who only ate our plums), now seemingly replaced by squirrels and now by the deer!

Peggy Parietti