“I wanted to give you some garlic,” said Corny. “But a moose trod on my crop.”

Earlier, I’d asked a farmer for lettuce. “Here’s the last head,” he offered. “A moose came by and stepped on my lettuce row.”

Nobody argues with a moose. But other creatures like to share your garden.

Neighbor Jerry lived up the mountain from our house. A city boy who was enjoying the “romance” of country life, he had had special tables made, so he could watch deer feed outside his dining room windows. Once the deer found this easy meal, they would come up from the river below, scramble up our steep hillside, stopping to sample the crops in the community garden. Refreshed, they would continue their climb to Jerry’s tables.

Jerry had grown up just as “Captain Kangaroo” appeared on early TV. On that pioneer kid’s show, the captain would often introduce different kinds of animals and invite children from his studio audience to come and feed the four-footed guests.

The idea was to make friends with other creatures, and feeding was a way for two species to communicate. Unwittingly, Captain Kangaroo had encouraged Jerry to believe that feeding these wildwood animals was OK.

Deer can manage to survive on their own, as they have done for thousands of years. But why should they bother when free food is laid out for them?

Given the chance, deer go for vegetable crops, too. From the flower garden, there are more things to eat: tasty daylilies, for instance, and tulips.

Frustrated growers have produced many remedies: wire fences two widths high, for one. Or one could surround the vegetable plot with a double fence, the outer one 18 inches from the inner one. Again, laying fencing flat on the ground outside a wire fence is another solution. Electric fencing is another option.

Some answers are expensive, others (such as a mulch of lion manure) a little impractical. Urine (coyote or human) around the perimeter is another.

Using netting over shrubs can discourage deer, but it’s not a beautiful answer. There are streamers of mylar around plantings, or a radio in the garden may scare deer in the beginning until they get used to it.

Deer will avoid most growing herbs, the more fragrant or pungent, the better. This is worth a try. Use catmint (if you can control it) and there’s a large choice of sages.

What is the size of your neighborhood herd? Depending on the number of deer, a variety of remedies might be used in combination. You could always plant an herb plot just outside the vegetable or flower garden, for one.

A deer’s digestion changes with the season: in the warmer months, one may sometimes see deer grazing in a field. Cooler months could mean a change of diet, to browsing on woody plants: oak twigs and leaves, for instance. Chokeberry (Aronia sp.) and chokecherry (Prunus virginiana) along with small white pines and Washington hawthorns now are tasty to them. Deer would now be more likely to show up in a commercial tree or shrub nursery or an orchard.

Tell me what tactics you have used to keep deer out of your garden. These graceful creatures are fun to watch — but not among the hostas!

Then there are the raccoons …