Tomatoes and friends

 I planted tomatoes this spring, for the first time in years. I stopped because I felt defeated by the deer and the patterns of dry and wet weather here in north central Florida. 

The first time I went to my favorite locally-owned nursery, they had nothing. They were cleaned out. Then I kept going back until they had some good tomatoes. Sun Gold, my go-to cherry tomato. And a variety new to the workers at the nursery and to me also. A new feature of going to the nursery is the young workers taking out their phones to look up the varieties. Indeterminate. Determinate. I decided to take a chance on Principe Bhorgese. So I have two Sun Gold cherries with Principe Bhorgese in the middle. 

Everything was going great until it wasn't. I was harvesting a half dozen or more ripe tomatoes every day. And then there were none. Not even green tomatoes on the vine. Nothing. So I realized, along with everything else that has been happening, that the increased number of deer going through the woods and our yard means that they are trying new things that they have never eaten before. My dogwood leaves. The daylily buds. Not the agapanthus yet, but perhaps the deer in the northwestern part of the county will tell them that the agapanthus are pretty good. These days I spray everything floral with Liquid Fence, except for things I want to eat, like the tomatoes. 

So I did some research and here is what I found. Planting rosemary, sage, and hot chili peppers near the tomatoes--these aromatic herbs will keep the deer away. As soon as I learned this, I went to my favorite locally-owned nursery and bought two rosemary, two garden sage, and two Serrano chili pepper plants. That Saturday night I just placed the herbs in their four inch pots on the ground around the tomatoes. The next morning, nothing had been disturbed. Then I planted them in place around the tomatoes. It has been more than a week since I have gone out to find no ripe tomatoes, or no tomatoes at all, on the vines. 

So far, it seems, the herbal deterrents work to keep the deer from eating everything. 

"The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last!" To quote Cecily from The Importance of Being Earnest.