Growing in the "wild" is tough, there will always be losses, you learn lots of little tricks to protect your plants from animals and the elements and you just have to allow for the losses. play the percentages, plant more to allow for losses. Before feminized seeds, I'd plant an amount of plants, expecting to get about 30% of them to harvest (some male, some die). Feminized seeds has improved the attrition rate back in our favor.