Blood meal scattered often will keep rabbits away. But you have to rescatter after every shower or watering....and if you have wandering dogs they may take to digging in your garden. But the good news is that after a few months ( bunnies are slow learners) they will realize your garden smells like death and not have buffets there.
But look at it this way...at least you kept them busy with the salad and away from the tomatoes.

Also in CT but out in the boonies. I had to laugh at your bunny problem. I have chased turkeys, rabbits, raccoon, deer etc out of our garden but drew the line at the bears.
The blood meal did help. Glad you enjoyed your tomatoes.

Tricia:
Along with other things, to keep the animals away, I make a brew to spray on plants.

I make about a half gallon at a time.

Put a pot on the range top with a half gallon of water, bring to simmer.

In the meantime chop up about 5 Cloves of Garlic and add to to water. I use Garlic Powder.

Add a pinch of Red Pepper and simmer for about 15 minutes.

Let it cool then beat in an Egg.( I use Powdered Egg )

Strain this thru a Strainer w a Cheesecloth laid across the bottom.
I cover the whole strainer bottom with an old T Shirt,
because it takes a while, to drip thru.

Put this mix in a Plastic Spray or Stream Bottle.( Spray bottles get clogged ) Shake before using.

Some bottles have a Stream or Spray selection.
They ae available in Dollar Stores.

This will keep in the frige for months.

I use it for Deer but you can test it for Rabbits.

Put a some food out that they will eat.
Place a little, away from the other and spray it with the mixture, to see if it works.
Lou

Sounds like your garden would have been very successful if it weren't for those @**!@*#*! bunnies. It still sounds like you had a nice little harvest! I've had trouble with bunnies the last two years despite having a rabbit fence around the garden. They'd figure out a way to slip under the fence. I'd fix it. They'd find another way in. The deer (even the fawns!) can jump the fence, but they weren't bad this year.

Congrats on your first garden! Oh I had a tough go with radishes too. I think I planted too late and it was too hot & dry.

Maybe start farming bunnies? I'm not kidding - ask Lyra!

My rabbits don't bother my hostas or vegetables. When I first moved here the place had all poorly cared for lawn. White clover had moved in. The rabbits and deer loved it. As my gardens expanded I found out from a local nursery that the clover is Landino white clover. Many growers plant plots of it around their beds as a deterent to deer and rabbits. You can buy it online. Prepare several feeding areas and plant the seed. It will come back year after year. I have one such area at the bottom of the hill in the back yard. Another clover to mix in for color is Dark Dancer. Four leafed dark maroon leaves edged in bright green thin edges. Hearty in zones 4-10.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dark Dancer Clover

There are so many ways to deal with critters in the garden. Lots of old wives' tales, even more old husbands' tales. They all kind of work for some animals, but not all.

There is really one sure way to keep them all away, deer, hares, opossums, rats, squirrels -----forever. A way that they cannot out smart you, an inexpensive way.

An electronic fence system is very effective and very affordable. It is humane and non-toxic. It takes very little power to operate. A system will last for many years. Nothing to buy. The only thing it cannot keep away is the flying kind.

dcarch

Tricia I feel your pain. BF's beautiful garden was destroyed in one night by one groundhog. Well, if you got good tomatoes, that's reason enough to celebrate. The bunnies got a lot, but you got the best! At least you know they are a possibility. I'm surprised about the peppers though, they are toxic like potatoes and tomatoes so I'm surprised, my evil bunnies leave mine alone, it's all I can grow it seems.

I would have loved to have your cukes as we like to make fresh pickled ones, so yummie. Used to go to cuke farm and buy grocery bag full for $ 2.00. Now I have to buy locally at $ 0.55 a pound, we still do it and make small batches.
For our bunny problem, we used to sprinkle cayenne pepper. But for our vegetable garden we had electric fence to keep the armadillos from digging it up.

My stepmother's big tom cat seems to keep the bunnies at bay, when I had a problem they seemed to like beans the best, they'd go along a row and nip off every single leaf on the baby plants, leaving just a pitiful stem.

I'm no master gardener, just a plain old farmer, but I had the best garden year in a long time here. I got two 5 gallon buckets of fingerling potatoes, we're still eating those. I have at least a couple dozen butternut squash in the garage, along with a couple of buckets of sweet potatoes and lots of squash went in the freezer. Cabbage went nuts, I finally fed it to the cattle and we couldn't eat sweet corn fast enough to keep up. Tomatoes loved the weather, as did peppers. I just pulled up the last of the collards and fed those to the cows today too, along with a big basket full of zucchini left from the last picking.

I'm also surprised the bunnies would eat peppers. They've never touched mine and I've seen rabbit repellant made from hot peppers. Grandma used to sprinkle cabbage and lettuces with cayenne pepper to keep the rabbits out of them.

Radishes, now those didn't do well this year. Lots of tops, no radishes except pencil thin roots under ground.

Annie

/tricia, I am truly sorry your garden didn't live up to your expectations.
But it sounds like the bunnies were happy.

And I love your sense of humor in the whole thing.
Incredible!

Rusty

Be judicious in applying blood meal. It is a quite potent nitrogen fertilizer and you don't want to over fertilize. A heavy application isn't needed to deter rabbits.

Four legged critters are difficult to deal with. What works in one case often doesn't work in another. Sometimes a fence will work, sometimes not. My woodchuck problem was finally solved when coyotes moved into the neighborhood. I have lots of rabbits and, for some reason, they never bother anything, even flats of seedlings sitting on the driveway getting hardened off in the spring.

Failure of radishes to "bulb up" is a frequent and frustrating problem. It comes up year after year on the Vegetable Gardening Forum. I have yet to find a conclusive answer. Some people's radishes never fail, some people's always fail and some, like mine, fail occasionally. Don't give up.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Radish Failure

Thanks for all the tips & suggestions about our bunnies. Over the past few years they've been busy developing a PUD (Planned United Development) under our hydrangea hedge & annexing our plantings as community gardens.

We also have deer. They will not cross the Amtrak rails to get to our penninsula. However, on hot muggy summer evenings the deer enjoy a cool swim over from Mason's Island. (I did not know deer would swim across a saltwater cove until I moved to Mystic.) They stroll around our penninsula of about 20 homes taking in the sights, peeking in our windows, & generally treating our landscapes like a Whole Foods full of pretty organic produce for dinner. Most of the time they'll stay on the garden paths but, sometimes, they mis-step & smoosh a plant (or two). When they're tired & ready to turn in for the night they swim back to the island. It appears to be a social activity. They come in groups of 3-5 deer & always leave the water at this small cut in the marsh about 100' from our property.

As a certified Wildlife Habitat we can't do anything such as using pepper spray. Also can't fence & keep our certification. I'm not sure about the blood meal. We submitted our plan & had it approved using plant material that would attract both of these critters. It seems we've been successful. We even get the occassional black bear.

At the time, we had no intention of attempting a veggie garden because the weather here is usually not suitable for stuff like tomatoes.

We'll ponder over the winter & try again come spring. It was a fun experiment & everybody on the penninsula got a kick out of our efforts so we also provided some local amusement as well as good eats over the winter with our tomatoes.

/tricia

Here is a link that might be useful: Mason's Island Deer

Typo alert! That should be "...PUD (Planned Unit Development)..."

/t

Be judicious in applying blood meal. It is a quite potent nitrogen fertilizer and you don't want to over fertilize. A heavy application isn't needed to deter rabbits.

Four legged critters are difficult to deal with. What works in one case often doesn't work in another. Sometimes a fence will work, sometimes not. My woodchuck problem was finally solved when coyotes moved into the neighborhood. I have lots of rabbits and, for some reason, they never bother anything, even flats of seedlings sitting on the driveway getting hardened off in the spring.

Failure of radishes to "bulb up" is a frequent and frustrating problem. It comes up year after year on the Vegetable Gardening Forum. I have yet to find a conclusive answer. Some people's radishes never fail, some people's always fail and some, like mine, fail occasionally. Don't give up.

Jim

Here is a link that might be useful: Radish Failure

Good luck next year, Tricia. Our radishes came up just fine but they were inedibly too hot for me.

Jessy,

The usual causes of hot radishes are growing them in hot weather or growing them without enough moisture, resulting in slow growth. I think they will be milder if you grow them in a cool season and keep them well watered so they size up quickly. And pull them soon as they are big enough to use.

BTW, radish leaves are a very good soup ingredient.

Jim

Just a quick note for those of you who are not familiar with an electric fence system.

An electric fence is energized by a high voltage/ low current charge. It is completely harmless to humans, children, pets, and animals.

dcarch

and clarification - in our case, the electric fence was just one wire above the ground so the animal we wanted to keep out would touch it if they wanted to enter the area. It was completely invisible from far away and close up we would just step over it. Also , no spraying with pepper just shaking the cayenne pepper sold as spice around the area we did not want bunnies to go to.

Well, all in all, I think you did great. It sounds like you had a wonderful bounty of potatoes and tomatoes. And, how cool to have that certified wildlife habitat designation. You are helping keep the bee population alive, with their highly-valuable link-in-the food chain pollinating.
And, assuming bunnies have their own Weight Watchers group, you are infusing money into the economy as well. My personal Nemesis of vegetable gardening, Gary Groundhog, will be most happy to sponsor them should they not already belong.

Hmmmm......electric fence....thinking of indoor applications where it might be useful for certain family member deterrence....lol!