Our Poor, Pathetic Garden

I knew our garden this year wasn't going to be huge.  Given that we didn't get our backyard completed until July, we had a very late start planting everything.  But I was hoping we would at least have an 'okay' garden & be able to enjoy some fruits & vegetables in late summer/early fall.  Unfortunately, I think this was all wishful thinking. 

We ended up planting some lettuce & cucumber seeds, as well as some blueberry, strawberry & grape plants.  We didn't need or expect much from our little garden, but we were hoping for something.  But it doesn't look like it's going to happen this year.  Because...

Slugs got to a lot of our lettuce & cucumbers, and this is what we are left with:

There has not even been one grape that has grown on this plant:

And some bird, cat, animal has been eating ALL of the blueberries & strawberries!  Every.Single.One.Of.Them!!!  Grrrrr!



I guess I shouldn't say all of them.  There is one lone strawberry left.  But I give it another day, and I'm sure that darn animal will find it.

I give up!  I think this season is a loss.  But my question is, what the heck do we do next season to avoid all of these problems??!!

Marc has slug 'stuff' that he sprinkles on the garden to avoid the slugs from eating the vegetables.  I just think he sprinkled it on a little too late this year.

But what the heck do we do about the berries??!! 

Marc's answer is to just not plant them next year.

Ummm, NO.  That is not going to happen.  The girls LOVE berries & I want to have them in our garden!

So I'm asking all of you master gardeners: what can we do next year with our berry plants to avoid animals from snatching it all up??!!

And I guess not everything is doomed this year.  Look at our hanging baskets!!!

Now, those are BEAUTIFUL!!!