After seeing the devastation that the rabbits did to our garden this winter, I am scarred.

I'm not planting anything that rabbits or voles like to eat. No lettuce for the rabbits to nibble constantly. No tomatoes for the voles to ruin one by one. Definitely not any carrots or parsley. Not even any lilies to be attacked from above and below.

Three crops this year at most. Okra with its fuzzy hairs is safe once it gets above seedling size. Hot peppers are safe from everything but tomato horn worms. And maybe some shallots. The herbs can remain since their volatile oils will be active during the growing season. But that's it for edible plants.

The empty sweet potato and tomato area can help out my overcrowded crinum and aloe pots. Aloe and crinum divisions should grow well in the garden soil. Under the shade of the okra I will plant hellebore seedlings. Let's see what they do with that unpalatable bunch.

I don't want to kill them. They are just doing what they do to survive. And I understand my style of gardening (mixed borders, four season interests, berms, raised beds, etc) invites them. But we have got to find a happy medium. (Why can't they eat nut sedge, creeping charlie, hen-bit, bindweed, thistle, chickweed, portulaca, oxalis, apple mint, and such?)

I hope the change convinces them to stop thinking of our garden as the main cafeteria. I don't mind seeing them occasionally, but I do mind sustaining them constantly. This may force an all out assault on the other tasty perennials. But I am prepared to transplant tulips, crocuses, toothworts, etc. and stake lilies so the rabbits can't walk them down.

This is the last attempt before I have to use the only guaranteed wildlife deterrent - fencing (above and below ground).