Who would attack my lowly garden? Bunnies. Hungry bunnies. Sneaky bunnies. Highly intelligent bunnies that tested one of my tomatoes a couple of days ago and left it on the vine. Bunnies who ripped off my two beautifully ripe tomatoes (which I almost picked yesterday, but I wanted to let them ripen a tad bit more), ate half of them, and left them in the corners of my yard. See?
What irks me the most is that they didn’t even eat all of it!! The least they could have done was eat more than half. Don’t you agree?
At least the bunnies ate about half of this one and left the rest to share with the slugs in my garden.
Is that all I discovered this morning? Unfortunately not. I’ve mentioned my strawberries before, and just Monday, I was thinking, “Wow, I might actually get strawberries after all!” Famous last words. See…
Why does this look like dirt in this picture? Because the bunnies ate all the new growth on my strawberry plants. It was several weeks’ worth. Grr…
I’ll keep chugging along, fighting the bunnies, trying to harvest my own produce (instead of letting the bunnies do it). Please don’t think that everything is bad here in socal. Things are actually quite good, and I do have some garden successes to share.
My spaghetti squash plants are growing! These are my two biggest plants, and they’re just beginning to flower!
My summer squash plants are doing fabulously well! I have several yellow squash growing!
My eggplant plant has recovered somewhat since the bunnies nearly ate it to the ground, but it’s not thriving. I am making a couple of adjustments in hopes it will improve.
And, finally, my robust pepper plants from last year. All of them have fruit on them, and I am SO excited! This one has several, and one is almost ready to harvest!
Yes, I’m having some trouble keeping the bunnies out of some parts of my garden, but I’m having more successes than failures.
Life is good. Tell me about some of the good things in your life.
Laurel Laurie Staten Nguyen Newhall, CA
My Foray Into Food Storage 
June 11, 2014 at 10:09 am
Did you see bunnies 🙂 because in my village home, I saw several times Magpies, how amazingly they pick and eat tomatoes (of my neighbour’s garden) 🙂 Good Luck for your tomatoes, Thanks and Love, nia
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June 11, 2014 at 10:13 am
Yes, we have bunnies all over our neighborhood. I see them in and around my yard almost every day. 😦
Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and for taking the time to comment!
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June 11, 2014 at 10:16 am
Very nice! Looks like you are getting the hang of gardening! With regard to your tomatoes, once you see them start to turn red, it is perfectly fine to pick them and let them ripen off the vine (perhaps somewhere bunny safe?). When the time comes, I pick every tomato thats even blushing and bring them and put them on my porch. I sort through them for ripe ones, and when I get enough ripe I will can a load. Usually have to pick 2-3 times a week during their ripening season to keep up.
By the way, my neighbor on the farm killed my local fox and my bunny population had exploded – until the snakes moved in! I saw two HUGE black snakes this past weekend and no bunnies! 🙂
Anyway, keep up the good work!
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June 11, 2014 at 10:31 am
Thank you for the tips! I’m going to take your advice and pick the tomatoes as soon as they blush!
There are coyotes and rattlesnakes in the area, and they keep the bunny population somewhat under control, but there are two bunnies that live somewhere near me (probably on the hillside behind my house), and they come out for “snacks” several times a day and at night.
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June 11, 2014 at 11:24 am
Darn bunnies!! They’re cute, but evil! 😉
At least where I am we don’t have to worry about it, because the coyotes ate all of them.
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June 11, 2014 at 11:49 am
Bunnies must be banning together. The last number of years they’re more and more successful in their forages. Bad Bunnies.
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June 11, 2014 at 1:36 pm
It could also be squirrels, and their larger allies – the woodchucks. Out woodchucks are positively brazen and our squirrels take bites out of everything.
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June 11, 2014 at 2:09 pm
Turtles also LOVE tomatoes! They love tomatoes more than bunnies do.
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June 11, 2014 at 3:12 pm
I feel your pain. Where I live we share our produce with deer, bunnies and pests. We even have what they call Japanese beetles which look like ladybirds but can consume greens voraciously. I hesitate to use too much pesticides, you see, for obvious reasons. But good luck with yours.
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June 11, 2014 at 3:23 pm
I’m having bunny issues this year as well. I noticed all of the neighbors fenced in their veggie gardens, and now I have an increased bunny vandalism problem. I actually saw one 2 feet away from me eating one of my Hostas! The nerve!
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June 11, 2014 at 4:07 pm
Luckily we don’t have bunnies. Deer sometimes, though not this year.
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June 12, 2014 at 10:52 am
Wrekless Farmer has a great suggestion. My mamaw used to do that. She would put hers on boards she placed on sawhorses under a large oak tree in her back yard. It worked great.
For the bunnies, you Can use chicken wire. Either run a fence of it around your entire garden or make cages to place over the problem plants.
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June 13, 2014 at 9:21 am
Glad to see it’s not just my garden!! My garden has been attacked… I just don’t know from what! Thanks for sharing this post 🙂 it made me feel better!
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June 13, 2014 at 1:21 pm
We have rabbits all over our yard, but I’ve never seen them stretch up to eat our tomatoes. We have them in 2 ft high containers, and then the tomatoes climb through tomato hoops from there–some 4-5 ft off the ground. Last year we produced 26 tomatoes, of which we got eat….TWO! Every time I looked out the kitchen window, the squirrels were stealing them. They’d take them up a tree, dig in for the seeds, then drop the whole rest of the beautiful plump tomato in our yard. However, those darn bunnies are very good at nibbling down new growth. Got no rhubarb this year because every time a sprout came out of the ground, they nibbled it back down to the dirt. It’s a never ending war. Good luck!
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June 13, 2014 at 1:24 pm
I feel your pain! This tomato plant is relatively small, and it’s not in a raised bed. Plus, they left them alone last year.
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June 13, 2014 at 8:17 pm
😦 Sorry to hear about the bunnies eating your vegetable garden. I love your updates. They keep me inspired to stay vigilant in my own yard.
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