More On Keeping the Bunnies Out of Our Veggies

When are those critters with long ears and cotton ball tails called bunnies and when are they called rabbits? I think I'm beginning to sense when.

I felt something like the fictional Scottish farmer Mr. McGregor the other night, chasing not one but four bunnies around the yard. I don't think I'll be baking any of these cute critters into a pie for supper (as Mrs. McGregor did). I am, however, actively trying to dissuade them from gobbling up my vegetable garden.

So, how do you keep bunnies/rabbits out of a vegetable garden? I'm not sure they're paying attention to my lectures on choosing grass instead of vegetables. For the most part, I feel we're lucky that the rabbits haven't done more damage to our garden. They've eaten the leaves off of strawberry plants and last year they chewed the pea vines right off at the base. So far, that's it. This year, we skipped planting peas altogether. No use devoting precious garden space to something so tempting to the animals. So, that's one thing we've done to save the veggies for ourselves.

Another thing that has worked for us is this year, after transplanting tender young zucchini plants into the garden, I protected them well with empty gallon milk jugs with the base cut off. Last year, it was a bit of a battle between us and the bunnies with the zucchini. I had to reseed the summer squash, as the rabbits chewed the seedlings down to the soil after the first attempt. This year, so far so good. I think the milk jug protection has been working. As the plants grow, the main stem should become too tough to chew through. 

When the zucchini seedlings grew too large for the milk jugs, I moved those containers over to protect some tiny Romaine lettuce seedlings that were in the garden.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, we made a couple of primitive stick fences to enclose the strawberry beds. Those appear to be working. Although an earnest rabbit could jump these low fences, the thought is they might just be deterred enough to move on to another planted area, hopefully one that the people don't plan on eating themselves.

When I transplanted the Brussel sprout seedlings into the garden, I covered that patch with insect cloth and secured the edges with stones. I transplanted these about 3 weeks ago. I checked on them today and they appear to be doing well under the cloth. Again, like the zucchini, I hope the main stems become too tough soon and I can lift the cloth for the rest of their growing season.

But I think the best move we've made is to grow foods that are tender and appealing to rabbits raised off the ground. I've shown you the hanging salad baskets we have growing across the back side of our house. 

We've also utilized space in our trough planters for beets and lettuce. 

I planted a shallow bowl planter with the remaining lettuce seedlings from planting the hanging baskets. The bowl planter is currently sitting on the deck table  along with planters of basil.

I seeded spinach in pots which I set on top of the tall and narrow terracotta pots, just high enough that the rabbits can't even peak over the edge to see what's there. And, I planted the carrots in deep pots this year instead in the main garden beds.

I think mostly we're improvising on the fly and using what we have on hand. So far, the salad greens are working out fine with these efforts. I'll be seeding green beans over the weekend and I'll cover them with insect barrier like I did the Brussel sprouts. I've started seeds in the main garden as well. So far the slugs are more of a problem there than the rabbits. 

As for those 4 rabbits the other evening, after about 15 minutes of bunny craziness, I caught a glimpse of something in the air at the front of our woods. Next I saw what I think was a Cooper's hawk swooping down. I didn't see him nab any rabbits. But then again, I haven't seen those 4 bunnies in a few days. Perhaps they're hiding out someplace safe. Oh well, it's the cycle of life and all.