I HOPE our readers’ flower and vegetable gardens are doing well and that early harvested vegetables are as tasty as the gardener would wish them to be.

Unfortunately, there are times when all does not go well with our plantings.

For example, one of our Mirror Lake readers wrote, in part: “Today I write in frustration. My husband and I have a small vegetable garden that was ravished by deer last year. So we erected a fence, complete with a custom hand-wrought latch (my husband is a blacksmith). It was most likely that that latch has kept the deer away from the string beans, but now a new burglar has struck. The beans have been cut down.

The sunflowers chopped off. The blossoms on the squash are gone. The broccoli has been severed. (It is interesting — only my heirloom melon was untouched.) We’re guessing it is a woodchuck, so we purchased some fox urine that seems to be working. But now, the deer are frustrated and have turned to my day lilies. This morning all the buds on the special yellow lilies and a young hydrangea bush was shorn of its leaves. A neighbor suggests coyote urine, but I am ready to give up. I love the deer, but this has been really disheartening. To add salt to my wounds, something has cut the stems of my flowering cyclamen off about a foot from the ground. Very puzzling and sad.

“Now on top of all that, I am even afraid to walk across the grass to get to the garden. I spied a round hole in the grass about 4 inches in diameter and about 4 inches deep with dirt piled nearby. When I went to examine it, a swarm of bees attacked! I haven’t been stung since I was a little kid and boy did they hurt!

“So my questions are : Do you have any clever deer deterrents? And who dug the hole with the bees in it?”

I suggest you check with a local outlet that sells garden supplies and ask their advice. There are several kinds of deer repellents.The local supplier’s recommendation should be helpful.

Another place to inquire would be your UNH County Extension Service. Their “Master Gardener” should have good information for your locality.

With respect to the “hole in the ground,” I asked my good friend Ted Walski, NH Fish & Game biologist, and he thought a skunk may have dug it searching for grubs. There are wasps that live underground that are mean actors, I know from experience. The best way to handle them is to wait until after dark when they are all in their earth burrow. Using a can of wasp killer, saturate into and around the hole with the spray. That has always worked for me.

Ted mentioned that because the teeth of deer and woodchucks are different, the remaining stems appear different. When deer chew off plants they leave a flat cut. On the other hand, stems that woodchucks bite off usually show as an angle cut.

But all nature’s wild folk were not completely unkind as our reader closed the letter by writing: “Nature came through for me at the end of the day. We spotted a nervous indigo bunting at our bird feeder. I think that made up for anything that went wrong today.”

A nature lover from Belmont commented: “We have a family of turkeys in our backyard. Mom and six kids! Plus we have many deer — even had 2 moose.

Waiting for the bear. Ha!

Ha! How lucky are we?”

An active Manchester reader wrote, in part; “I am a runner and I see a lot of things while I’m out and about. My long runs tend to be in the 10-mile range, and typically run at 5:30 a.m., before work and traffic and temperatures begin to climb.

“Several weeks ago, as I got to the top of a particularly challenging hill, I heard what sounded like roof shingles being taken off, but as quickly, I also knew that the construction workers didn’t typically start until 7 a.m.

“I slowed down even more than what was my slow pace at that point, looked right toward the house roof and saw a large pileated woodpecker on an oak tree making the ‘racket.’ He was quite beautiful and I stopped to watch him in the quiet of the morning.

A second later, a second pileated joined him! It was a little smaller in length and body size (could it have been a female?) and the two of them pecked away, apparently not bothered by my gawking! I finally continued my run, but certainly privileged to have seen two of these amazing birds at the same time.”

Both male and female pileated woodpeckers look identical. The one difference is usually difficult to detect unless the bird is viewed close-up. Both male and female have a distinct mustache and therein lies the difference. The female’s mustache is black; the male’s is red.

Stacey Cole’s address is 529 W. Swanzey Road, Swanzey 03446.