Mystery Solved

A few weeks ago I noticed the flowers from my hostas had all been nibbled off. Perplexed I called my favorite Garden Lady to get some advice. She said if the cuts were at an angle it was probably rabbits. That sounded reasonable to me because I had seen plenty of rabbits in the yard

Then I woke up to this, believe it or not it had been a beautiful tomato plant with fruit that was beginning to ripen. I began to have serious doubts about rabbits, the condition of my hosta convinced me we were dealing with something much bigger. 

I know it doesn't look like it, but this was hosta, eaten down to the ground. 

These are what are left of my Day Lilly's. Can you guess what was munching away in our garden? Wish I had a photo to show you but she was too fast and it was too dark.  Seems like we have "city deer" who would have guessed. Next step was to try to protect what was left in the garden, husband had the perfect solution

It was obvious the deer had jumped the picket fence, so we decided to go up. Extended the picket fence with some chicken wire and stakes. We had to act quickly because we were getting ready to go out of town the next day...wanted to make sure we had some garden left when we got back.

We weren't successful the first night, deer tried to jump the fence again, left some hair behind, knocked the picket down and crawled in between the pickets, ate the remainder of the hostas on the side of the yard and more Day Lilly's. Husband put fencing around the bottom of the picket that morning and reinforced the rest...all before we left for our trip...it made for a pretty hectic morning but we were successful. When we came back from our trip there was no more evidence of deer damage in the backyard but it continues in the front and side yards. So how about you, how do you contend with deer?