Keeping Rabbits Out of the Kitchen Garden

/Home/Garden Basics/Plant & Lawn Care/Garden Problems and Solutions/Keeping Rabbits Out of the Garden

by Helga Olkowski
June 2000
from issue #27

When Beatrix Potter’s Mrs. Rabbit warned Peter not to go into Mr. McGregor’s garden, the admonition went in one of Peter’s large ears and out the other. And so it goes today. Vegetable gardens, orchards, and ornamental plants are highly attractive to rabbits, especially during droughts and long winters or where urbanization has reduced their wildland habitat.

A childhood perspective on rabbits as mischievous but benign cuddly animals usually fails to prepare adults for their first encounter with wild rabbits running amok among their prized cabbages. The distraught gardener is left furious about the damage but dreading the idea of harming those undeniably cute rabbits.

Fortunately, there are practical ways to outwit the wild rabbits without doing them harm.

© 2012 The Taunton Press, Inc. All rights reserved.