Herb Harvest

This year's garden has unfortunately been pretty paltry, mainly because of our resident woodchuck who took it upon himself to eat all of our salad greens, squash, beans, and many other things. I'm honestly pretty ticked off at Mr. Woodchuck. I mean, earlier in the year he hung around our yard a lot and we were cool with each other. As soon as we planted our garden and started seeing things come up, we noticed his little bite marks all over everything. He must have been thinking we had planted all those goodies especially for him!

Anyway, returning from my tangent...the only plants that actually did reasonably well this year was our lavender, basil, and sage (I guess Mr. Woodchuck doesn't fancy those delicacies). While I'm disappointed that we didn't have a more abundant garden, I'm happy that at least those three seemed to make it, especially because those were the three I had planted for the specific purpose of incorporating into my candles.

The lavender won't flower too much this year, but I'm expecting them to look nice and full next year:

The sage and basil did exceptionally well and I'm really excited to pick and dry those:

(The sage is to the left and the basil is in the far right corner.)

I'll do another post after I've dried the sage and basil and let you know how it goes, since this will be the first time I'm incorporating dried herbs into my candles.

Did anyone else do a garden this year? Did you have better luck than I did? Also, if anyone has any natural (and humane) tips for keeping away animals, please share!