A couple of weeks ago, I planted most of the fall crop with the exception of garlic, spinach and turnips. Most everything except the lettuce has germinated. It's still too early to determine if I'll need to replant anything. Correction: I do need to re-plant an entire row of green beans. Poor germination from saved seed, you ask? No sir.
I had a whole row of green beans that popped up out of the ground. I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that we had a 99% germination rate. Green beans are one of my favorite garden crops due to the taste and the abundant harvest that you can have from a small piece of real estate. As I surveyed the young plants, I licked my lips thinking about eating fresh green beans this fall.
Little did I know that there was someone else in the garden licking their lips, thinking about eating fresh green beans right now! The next morning when I went out, good golly, something had eaten all but seven of our green bean plants
You can see where the creature snipped off every beanstalk on the row except the seven survivors. I don't know whether he left those seven to mock me or if he just got full...
But I know full well who did it. In the very back of the garden, I have a big compost pile. I alternate throwing wood chips, cow poop, and garden trimmings on the pile and over time, it generates some good compost that I amend into the garden. Unfortunately, our heirloom Louisiana sugar cane also grows back there and during the summer, the back portion gets overgrown. Even though we have 4x4 wire fencing, Tricia and I noticed a little cottontail rabbit gaining entrance into the garden, hiding in the back near the compost pile.
I had to act fast to hope to save our garden. Pretty soon, cauliflower, cabbage, carrots, broccoli and a whole host of other crops will be springing forth from the ground and will be high on the menu choices for a hungry bunny. First I cleaned up the jungle area, chopping most of the sugar cane and removing the louffa gourd vines. I made a bunch of racket - my goal was to frighten the rabbit OUT of his hideout in the garden and back into the woods. As soon as I was 100% positive he was evicted, I moved to phase II of the rabbit eradication plan.
My wife felt that I should set traps to catch him, but my counterpoint was that in the garden, there is a lot for a rabbit to eat. I don't know how successful I'd be attracting him into a cage when he lines up at an All You Can Eat buffet on the green bean aisle every day.
I determined that I would build a wall, so to speak, to block entry of all undocumented rabbits into my garden. In this case, the wall is a three foot high roll of chicken wire. The plant was to run it around the outer perimeter fence of the garden, wiring it to the existing fence to hold it securely.
You can see how a young rabbit could fit through the 4x4 openings of the old garden fence. You can also see how overlaying chicken wire on top of it presents a formidable obstacle for rabbits to continue with their nocturnal incursions into the garden.
It took me about half of a day to get the chicken wire in place and fastened. Guess what? This morning, the same seven green bean plants are still standing tall. Not to be defeated, I replanted the remainder of the green bean row and watered it in. I hope it worked! No doubt, the rabbit is scheming and strategizing, plotting and planning new means of entry to the food sources in our garden. What Peter Rabbit may not know is that rabbit season opened on October 3rd and I have no qualms about putting a little fat rabbit on our smoker.
No comments:
Post a Comment