Some might say it is a delusion instead, but it all remains to be seen. We have plant predators here, and they come in a lot of shapes and sizes.
Starting with the smallest, we have Pocket Gopher. These attack plants from underneath. Think the movie, “Tremors” and you have the right idea. Next in size is a Snowshoe Hare. They like to munch virtually everything, but their reach is limited by their height and they’re little guys.
Next are deer – two species here, namely Whitetail and Blacktail, or Mule Deer. They eat plants from the ground up to about six feet off the ground.
And last we have Black Bears. They eat anything and everything, and they climb. We have seen baby Black Bears forty feet up a large Ponderosa Pine.
The upper deck is roughly six feet off the ground.
So, now my theory. I theorize that if I put plants out of the reach of predators that we might get to harvest our garden produce and enjoy our flowers. From the two smallest predators, I know this plan will keep the plants safe. Pocket Gophers rarely come above ground and they never climb anything. Snowshoe Hares do come up on the front deck, but I seriously doubt they will then also climb a short flight of stairs to the upper deck.
Deer could conceivably reach planters on the end of the deck by standing on their back feet and stretching up. But they don’t like to get that close to the house normally, so I think they will give the plants up there a pass. They might sniff in their general direction and give us dirty deer looks; I think we can survive that sort of attitude.
Bears, now, that is going to be the real test. They don’t care about being on decks at all, and getting close to the house doesn’t faze them. But climbing up stairs to a second deck, that might be something they decide is just not really worth the risk.
So, now we test my theory. I’ve wanted to do this since we moved here three years ago, and if it is a success, then next year we will add some additional pots and expand the scope of our gardening.
The front row planters are flowers and not as yummy smelling as the back planters will be when they produce fruits.
We used our Polaris Ranger to haul the pots down the hill to a potential garden site where we have some amazing topsoil. We filled the pots and placed them into the back of the ranger. That sounds easy, but the large pots are so heavy and it was almost all I could do to help Dan move them around. Then Dan backed the Ranger up to the upper deck and we lifted them again and slid them into place.
We planted tomatoes, Anaheim peppers, parsley, basil, and a few types of flowers.
Someday we may put in a real garden but it will take a lot of work building fences strong and high enough to withstand deer and bears, and we will have to build raised beds with wire cages inside to keep them safe from pocket gophers. That will all be a very expensive undertaking. If container gardening works, that may just be our solution.
Wild Hyacinth
The most recent wildflower blooming off the front deck is this beautiful Wild Hyacinth. Spring time is just an amazing season around here.