Moxie Gardener

I almost didn’t have any green beans this year, thanks to a bunny.  Last year I didn’t get any beans at all thanks to a bunny.  He dug up the seeds before they germinated and the plants never came up, despite a couple rounds of planting.

This year I outsmarted the little varmint, but not right off.  Oh no, it took me awhile.

I started out sprinkling cayenne pepper on the ground which kept him from digging up the seeds.  Then, as the leaves came up, I sprinkled cayenne pepper on them every night, which worked for awhile.  Either Mr. Rabbit developed a taste for cayenne or the wind blew it off, but one morning the new leaves were gone and little telltale teeth marks were evident on the stems.  (Incidentally, he also ate the new leaves off my tomato plants the first night after I transplanted them.  Cayenne kept Mr. Rabbit away from the tomatoes after that.)

After the cayenne pepper failed to keep Mr. Rabbit away from my beans, I knew I had to take drastic action.  A fence around the garden or fancy row covers wasn’t in the budget this year, so I had to get creative.  I pulled the bamboo tripod up and set it aside.  I grabbed some five-gallon buckets and covered each of the “hills” with a bucket at sunset and removed it early the following morning.  On the third day I noticed the new leaves were eaten again, despite being covered up all night when bunnies typically feed.

I persevered though.  Every night I put the buckets on and early every morning I removed them.  I didn’t thin the beans because I wanted as many plants as possible, in case some of them were eaten.  Some nights I would notice missing leaves, which puzzled me a little because I know bunnies are nocturnal and the plants were covered while it was dark.

Slight digression:  I have cats.  They go outside at night, but hang in the house during the day.  I generally let them in around 6:00 AM, and that’s when I would run out to the garden and remove the buckets from the beans, thinking the beans needed all the unobstructed sunlight they could get.

One morning at about eight o’clock I happened to look out the window at the garden and there was Mr. Rabbit, hopping in the garden, having his breakfast.  I had been removing the buckets too early in the morning.  Obviously because of the feline presence, the bunny had waited to have his breakfast until the cats were inside.

From that day on I waited until at least nine o’clock every morning before removing the buckets.  It was into July before the bean stalks finally got tall enough so the new leaves would be out of Mr. Rabbit’s reach once they climbed the bamboo tripod (with a little initial help from me).

I finally picked beans today, the latest I’ve ever picked my first beans of the season.  I’m happy I outsmarted a bunny though.  But when I think of all the bunnies I’ve avoided hitting with my car…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 12th, 2008 at 9:55 PM and is filed under beans. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.