[Community_garden] Scare rabbits away

[Vicki Garrett]

I haven't tried critter lites, but I read years ago that if you provide
animals with their natural diet, they won't bother your plants. So we have
lots of wild plants growing in our yard: wild grapes on the fence, boston
ivy on the walls, hackberry & mulberry trees in the fencerow, etc. It seems
to be working.

This spring, we woke up to find one new plant missing every morning . There
was a rabbit nesting in our front garden, and she was eating the most
convenient plants. I did some research on rabbit diets. I planted a cover
crop of oats, barley, peas, and hairy vetch near the rabbit hole and bought
Plantskydd (natural and nontoxic), supposed to be really effective in
protecting plants from rabbits and deer. The Plantskydd is still unopened,
but we haven't had a missing plant in weeks. I can't confirm a causal
relationship - the clover started to really take off about the same time I
planted the cover crop, and the Plantskydd might be working on the same
principal as our air conditioner (as soon as we gave in and bought an air
conditioner, the weather immediately turned cool). But the soil is being
improved where I planted the cover crop, and I have a bottle of animal
repellent if I ever need it. My husband tells me roasting with potatoes and
carrots would work even better.

BTW, I have a friend who complains about the squirrels taking one bite out
of every apple (she doesn't mind sharing, but she doesn't want the squirrels
wasting her whole harvest). Last Sunday, I watched a wren chase a squirrel
out of the oak tree near the wren house. I'll bet there will be a wren house
in her apple tree next year.

Vicki

On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 12:11 PM, carl wayne <rowsofbuttercups at yahoo.com>
wrote:

> We have lots of rabbits chewing away in our garden. Does anything humane
> work to keep them away? Has anyone tried "critter lites" that glow 2 red
> eyes activated by motion sensor?
>
>
>
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