I have said this before, but it is worth repeating. Sometimes you can do everything right in farming, and still lose the plants. This is a strange, but expected, example of this dictum.
We planted Rio Grande Tomatillos in our group plot at school. After having them in the ground a few days, a couple plants died and needed to be replaced. However, there was one plant that was bitten off. It was the third one from the end of the row, and something appear to have bitten the entire top off. Odd, but not unexpected.
So we replaced the couple plants that died with other spares we had. As for the one with the top bitten off, we decided to let it go as is because it still had a growth point a couple healthy true leaves. The plants around it were getting big, so it was time for trellising. The bitten off plant was too short for the trellising, but the string crisscrossed right over it. Unexpectedly, the next day the trellis string was bitten through and more of that same plant’s leaves were gone.
More annoyed by the fact that I had to retie the trellis string than surprised by the animal attack, we reset that section and hoped for the best for that one plant with only one true leaf and a grow point left. That hope was short lived because the next day I went out and saw the trellis string chewed through again and that same plant bitten down flush with the ground.
Moral of the story: farming is full of mystery, strategy, and wonder. You can prepare and strategize, but in the end you really just have to keep adapting to a dynamic situation that often doesn’t play fair.
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.” President Dwight D. Eisenhower
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