A Greene County Garden in August: Rabbits

By Margaret Donsbach Tomlinson

Rabbits can both charm and infuriate Greene County gardeners. Like groundhogs and deer, they will eat food plants and flowers alike, sometimes destroying a whole season’s planting of a particular variety. And yet a young rabbit ambling through the morning mists, nibbling on some clover here and—yes, some lettuce there—is also an enchanting reminder that our built environment is still home to many wild creatures.

The rabbits we are most likely to see in the Hudson Valley are Eastern cottontails (Sylvilagus floridanus). Abundant in the grassy meadows of the Midwest, they multiplied and spread here after New England’s forests were mostly cut down. Our native species, the New England cottontail (Sylvilagus transitionalis), is still found in scattered areas from Maine to southern New York State, but it’s rare now and being considered for protection as an endangered species. It’s hard to distinguish the two species. One subtle difference is that the New England cottontail sports some black hairs between the ears and on their inside edges, but genetic testing is a more reliable way to tell these rabbits apart.

All kinds of rabbits have many more taste buds than humans, an average of about 17,000 compared to our 2,000-8,000. Maybe that’s why they especially relish greens, enjoying clover, grasses, and most of the leafy crops in our gardens: lettuce, kale, bean plants, turnip greens, carrot tops, even the prickly leaves of zucchini. They are masters at getting inside a fenced area if they find just one gap small enough to squeeze through. Fortunately, there a few garden plants they won’t normally eat, including herbs with their intense flavors, as well as garlic and onions, and plants in the mustard family. Planting strong-smelling herbs next to other leafy vegetables may trick the rabbits into avoiding both herbs and vegetables. Another tactic might be planting spaces near the garden with clover, which rabbits especially enjoy, to lure them away from the vegetables.

But the only foolproof way to keep rabbits out of the vegetable garden is a good wire-mesh fence. It’s helpful to bury the first foot or so, bending the bottom of the mesh into an L shape that projects away from the garden in order to keep out diggers like chipmunks and groundhogs as well as rabbits. If the fence is a good five or six feet tall, rabbits can’t jump over it, and deer, who can, will usually browse elsewhere rather than trouble themselves to jump. Good fences, they say, make good neighbors. Those fluffy white tails and long ears will charm us more if their owner is not ravaging our vegetable beds.