Pride Goeth Before a Fall....

In my last post, I lamented about the gambles of gardening in Alaska because of our unpredictable summer climate.  I am here now to lament about another Alaska gardening gamble, a special kind of Alaska gardening pest.  And I do not mean aphids, or worms, or slugs.    I am talking about the big kind of pest that cannot be controlled by pesticides or fungal sprays.  Moose.

The other day when my hubby and I went for a bike ride, we spotted a mama moose with two young babies strolling through the neighborhood.  My guess is that this mama moose led her babies right to the salad bar in my back yard when she knew we would be in bed peacefully dreaming about sugar plums and candy canes, totally unaware of the nightmare going on outside in my garden.

Here is what my broccoli and peas looked like in my last post:

Here is what they look like now:

There is pretty much nothing left of my broccoli. Do you see the hoof print?  

The peas don't look too bad, but they were obviously part of the menu.

Here are before and after pictures of my beets:

Chomped right down the dirt. They didn't leave any been greens for me at all, which is what I was so proud of eating this past week.

My cabbage went from this:

to this:

Pretty much nothing left of the cabbage either.

It's almost funny in a way, but at the same time I feel like the little kid who is in the process of building a big tower out of dominoes and the big brother comes along and knocks it all down.

But let us be thankful, right?  I am glad that moose (apparently) don't like radishes or lettuce.  At least I still have those to look forward to, and hopefully the peas.  And when the domino tower falls down, what do we do?  Start all over, right?  

But, it will have to wait a couple weeks because we are leaving for Wisconsin tonight.  I will continue the next chapter of my garden after I get back.  In the meantime, I will be hoping that the moose doesn't come back and finish off what little she left.

Does anyone know where I can buy a potato gun???