16 2009-08-06T10:17:01-07:00 false I stopped by the community garden yesterday to pick up a few tomatoes and what I found, makes me want to cry. An animal, a large one, I suspect a raccoon (could have been a dog, maybe a bear ;) has done some serious damage to my garden. A part of the fence was trampled making it look like something just rolled right over it. A wide path was cut through the corn, which had sporadic germination at best but had finally put up tassels, leaving me with 4 or 5 undamaged stalks. The worst part was my tomatoes, several plants were trampled but will recover, I think. The upsetting part is the amount of ripening fruit I lost. Loads of fruit from the cherry plants were bit and spit out all over the ground, but the it's the larger fruits I'm most upset about losing. Three large perfect red tomatoes, two of which were still hanging on the plant, but all that was left was a bit of red flesh around the stem and to add insult to injury one perfect tomato with only a few bites taken out of it. I accept that gardening means some crop loss, but I'd like to at least taste a few of my tomatoes too. I'm not sure that this community garden is going to work out. I'm not giving up yet, but between the birds, bugs, weeds and animals my enthusiasm is starting to wean, especially with my husband's suggestion (to make me feel better) to expand our garden here at home. On a happier note, I did manage to pick a few fruit and am going to hope for the best when it comes to future harvests from the community garden. Photos 1. The harvest, I didn't really take note of what I picked because I was so upset ... I'll sort it out later and update milestones. 2. Stuffed 'Ronde de Nice' .... yummy 3. Ceylon, I'm not sure if this is really ripe or not. It feels like it is, but it's not very red. Either way I wasn't about to leave it in the garden for the animals. 4. Purple Peacock, 3 oz. Lightly sautéed as part of a stir fry. Yummy! They do NOT stay purple when cooked ... which I'd read, but was hoping I had magic beans, lol! 1 false 66340 false false false Entry 2009-08-05T21:00:00-07:00 DMY 77752 Public 2009-08-06T10:17:02-07:00 1452 Overcast 20 C