It's been a week since the cows obliterated most of the garden, and we've been busy. I was blessed with several friends coming over to help me deal with the mess and begin to see what could be salvaged from the ruins.
There were many plants that were trampled, rather than eaten. Here, the peppers were cropped down to about a third of their former glory, but the tomato cages and bamboo supports discouraged the cattle from pursuing their treats into oblivion.
This zucchini lost a lot of fruit and leaves.
There were a number of plants that, once the detritus was cleared away, showed signs of having enough vegetation left to make a comeback.
It took a considerable amount of effort to get to this point. My new friend and mentor, KC, helped us straighten weed barrier that had been torn out of place, and rake in the divots that hooves had dug in the dirt.
MC came with her teenagers, who cleared the mess (and it was an awful one) of the winter garden as well as more raking and shoveling. This open area had originally been full of sunflowers, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, radishes, snap peas, beets, carrots, and herbs. My plan now is to seed it with a cover crop for next spring. Her family's help in getting all the bits and pieces pulled up and thrown in the compost was very, very much appreciated.
These rows were previously so full that you couldn't see the soil... but it looks like some carrots and herbs survived... and the mystery squash, which was a volunteer, was relatively untouched.
This walkway was previously so full of sunflowers, marigolds, oregano, tarragon and catnip that you couldn't barely fit through it.
I'm pretty sure the marigolds will come back; their seeds are already germinating.
Any sunflower with at least a couple of leaves left was left; some of them may yet put out new blooms.
The tomatoes' lower branches were stripped, but enough of the longer vines were left that I may yet get a bit of a tomato crop this summer. The cows ate every tomato that had begun to change color.
I went to several different nurseries looking for starts. Almost everyone had removed their vegetable starts this late in the season, but I was able to find a few, plus a bunch of flowers. Here are some pansies and violas, small brave attempts at colorful cheer amongst the wreckage of the sunflowers.
MC and CV both brought me starts, which are planted and (mostly) look to be surviving.
I went through my seed collection and replanted everything that might possibly have enough time left in the growing season to start producing again.
It looks very bare out there right now, but we're still getting zucchini, a few peppers, cherry tomatoes, and a few herbs, and hopefully we'll be back in lettuce and radishes in a few weeks.
It's discouraging, but it's not the end of the world. Hopefully the weeds give me a break for a day or three; I could use the recovery time.
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