Thanks for the comments on my last post! Cari suggests in her comment using garlic and planting marigolds to keep out rabbits. Garlic powder may work, but marigolds (in my experience) are best to keep away insect pests. Marigolds planted around tomatoes, for example, repel tomato hornworm. While rabbits won’t eat marigolds, they don’t work as effectively as a repellant.

Since I prefer organic gardening whenever possible, I’ve tried other methods. With rabbits, the best way that I have found is a stout fence. They won’t tunnel like groundhogs or other critters, but they will squeeze through the smallest holes they can, particularly when something they love to eat dangles in front of them, like green beans or lettuce.

A stout fence is the best way to keep rabbits out of the garden. Burying the fence wire several inches below the surface of the soil and flaring it out also deters the rabbits. Most will wander off to eat clover and sweet grass elsewhere.

I’m trying other organic methods now of keeping rabbits out of the garden. Since Shadow, our German Shepherd guard dog, is a long-haired shepherd, I have to brush her every day. I get a huge mound of fur off of her. I am scattering this around the woods on the perimeter of the garden. I’ve been told that the smell of predators, from fur or urine, keeps herbivores like rabbits away. We’ll see. We haven’t had any rabbit damage in the perennial garden this year, and the rabbits appear to be living in the big brush pile next to the driveway where the builder piled up all the old trees.

By the way, the bear was spotted again in our driveway! I stopped to talk to our neighbors yesterday and Homer mentioned the black bear was in our driveway on Monday. John remembered all the blackberry bushes along the drive. I’d been picking blackberries like crazy at the start of July, but stopped before we went to Breyerfest. Last night we checked the bushes and they’re picked clean, so I’m hoping the bear was in our driveway simply to get some ‘fast food’ and pick berries!