Well, things were going along so well in our vegetable garden.  I guess you have to expect that when you lay out a scrumptious salad bar like we’ve done, that you will attract some critters.  And we have.  It took us a few beats to figure out what the problem was, but we seem to have rabbits eating our Swiss chard — they are gnawing those leafy greens right down to the center ribs!

Not being the kind to take this kind of abuse lightly, we are fighting back, but gently and in the Farmington Garden’s kind of way, of course.  We’ve applied a natural animal repellant product called Shot-Gun Repels-All, made by Bonide, which consists of granules of garlic oil, dried blood and egg solids.  These, when scattered on the ground, should last up to two months.  They won’t injure animals, but repels them by causing mild irritation to nasal passages.  It simply triggers the escape/avoidance instinct and they leave well enough alone.

If you are having similar problems in your garden, you might give this a try.  This product is labeled to repel: armadillos (we get a lot of those in Oregon!), beavers, birds, cats, crows, chipmunks, deer, groundhogs, mice, porcupines, rabbits, raccoons, rats, skunks and shrews.