Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Sorry, bunny

Does this look like the face of evil?
I've said it before: I would make a terrible farmer. To put it mildly, I have a soft spot for animals, as does Mr. Do. We giddily watch them in the yard, name them even (this little guy/gal is called "pocket"). I was simultaneously horrified and thrilled to see a chipmunk.
Squirrels and birds are only an occasional nuisance in the vegetable garden, grabbing the first ripe tomato or scratching up seedlings (I'll just ignore the berry issue, because how could they resist?).
Birds actually do far more good than harm, eating insects and brightening up the place in general..
So, this post started off in a bemused "oh cute lil bunny, you make me smile but you eat my stuff" kind of way. It took exactly one day for me to wish for the return of hawkhead or better yet a reappearance of the fox. I am now convinced that cuteness must be an adaptive strategy to avoid strangulation.
In the past, the rabbits have lulled me into complacency, nibbling happily on plantain and clover until I forget about them ... and then they eat every. single. bean. Not so this year. I wrapped some bird netting around the base of the bed of black eyed peas, and then I did the same for the other bean bed. 
I thought that's that, but that just inspired the bunny to expand its palate and move on to the okra seedlings and the Mexican sour gherkin vines, which are were just starting to take off--he even bit through my twine!
Short of enclosing the entire thing in a real rabbit fence (under and above ground), there are not a lot of attractive options.

2 comments:

  1. We have a plague of bunnies, they eat the woodland phlox, the ornamental grasses, the crocuses, etc. I've tried the bunny repellent, but who wants their garden to smell like bear piss? I might just look into getting a cat again ...

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  2. I have heard mixed things about the repellents. Fortunately (depending on your perspective) I have a fox who comes around (talk about smelly)--so you'll see in the next post what happened!
    I have only lost asters in my ornamental garden, but in the veggies garden, beans and okra are at peril.

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