Rabbit Stew

Rabbit stew.  That's what I want for supper.  Not really.  I've had rabbit, but don't really like it.  I'm talking about those pests in my back yard that are ruining my garden.  I typically grow a garden with tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce.  My wife likes to add broccoli and squash, but in reality our garden is pretty small, about 8' x 16'.  I built the garden with landscape timbers and imported dirt (not from France, from the landscaping shop).  Building the garden was a lot of fun.  My son helped out, and we hammered, sawed, and shoveled to our hearts content.  This is the garden in the new house, and it went straight down the tubes on the maiden voyage.  It started out the same as always.  I noticed that the lettuce didn't turn out so well, but didn't understand why.  It just didn't grow.  Then, one morning I looked out the window, and all my tomato plants had vanished...  into thin air.  I've never seen rabbits eat tomato plants before, but that's the only thing I could come up with.  I planted them again, and they vanished again.  I've got to protect these guys some how.  What to do?  Read on.

My first try was a big mistake and time/cost are not included in the summary metrics.  I didn't do my usual bourbon/Google meditation to come up with the idea.  I just went straight to Lowe's.  I reasoned that building a cage around the tomatoes would protect them.  Long story short, I built a circular cage around every tomato plant with wire fence and used some old stakes from behind the shed to secure them to the ground.  I replanted the tomatoes for the third time.  Do you think this worked?  Almost, but not 100%.  I was angered when I looked out the window and saw a rabbit eating a tomato plant through the wire of the cage.  Grrrrrrrr.  I started throwing anything I could find at the rabbit, and actually hit it once.  He wasn't happy, but was otherwise unscathed.  Lesson: don't skip the bourbon.

At this point I have 3 options:

1. Give up and have no fresh tomatoes
2. Hire a hit man to sit in a lawn chair all summer and kill rabbits in my back yard
3. Bourbon meditation and come up with a better idea

You know which one I picked.  The hit man idea sounds cool, but too expensive and probably more dangerous to my neighbors than the rabbits.  I didn't use Google this time, just bourbon and wits.  I theorized that a large fence around the entire garden would be the safest protection for my poor garden and headed to Lowe's again.

The fence section is foreign territory for me.  I haven't had the best of luck with fences or fence guys.  The pictures below were taken before the second fence guy built the fence.  I settled on a spool of 4' tall wire fence and bought 7 metal posts.  First, I hammered the posts into the ground.  I had some extra wood behind the shed and built a gate.  I found an old brass latch in my garage junk box that I installed on the gate.  Heavy duty staples hold the fence to the landscape timbers and also hold the fence to the gate (staple guns are a must for jobs like this).  Zip ties hold the fence to the posts. 



Garden in back yard



Garden, side shot with tiller

I decided to bet on the battle scarred tomatoes from the third planting.  I just didn't have time for a fourth set to grow.  I got 6 tomatoes in September from the rabbit-damaged plants.  Don't even try the math.  For what I'd invested, I probably could have flown to Japan and purchased a bucket of very nice tomatoes.  (If you've never been to Japan, the fresh fruit and vegetables are out of this world.) 

An unexpected thing happened after September.  We had 90 degree weather throughout October (2010), and the tomatoes started producing!!!  We had fresh tomatoes almost every day in October and even into the first part of November.  I didn't even see rabbits in the yard the rest of the year.  I heard they moved to an unprotected garden down the road.

Cost:  $75 for the fence and posts (already had the other parts)

Time:  3 hours

Special Note: metrics only include the solution that worked

Result: Rabbits are gone

 

  

Current Year Garden (2012)
Lettuce and Broccoli are already up