"Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands........" 1 Thessalonians 4:11

Saturday, April 23, 2016

In gardening, I always have 2 major problems,

when planting any kind of seed.........in any kind of container, and in any place outdoors......
or inside of the greenhouse.......
mice and rats always dig up the seed. It happens every year.

Now, one problem has been remedied .........so far.  I have had 3 large glass aquariums with wire mesh lids , that my children used to raise toads and lizards in. They have been sitting in storage for a long time.

I have now used each aquarium as a terrarium of sorts for sprouting all of my seed.

The glass walls of the aquarium and the wire mesh lid, keep the rodents completely away from my newly planted seed.  I also tape clear plastic wrap on the inside of the mesh lid to help prevent moisture from evaporating.

Now my greenhouse is full of growing plants 

from pumpkins to all kinds of flowers, 

getting ready to be transplanted into my gardens outside.............

which now brings up the other problem.........rabbits, rabbits, and more rabbits.
There are so many rabbits out on the grounds..........I love them, I do,..........but they mow anything that I have planted down and I lose all of my hard work in just days.

I can fix chicken wire fencing around every garden.........which I really don't want to do..
for time consuming, watering issues , and expense.
But I will, if I have to.........so can any of you , dear readers, 
give me any advice?
Do you have rodent problems in your gardens?
If so, what do you do to make them stay away??
Poison is not an option for me, and I don't have time to trap, re locate, and release.
I hope to start planing by the first week of May.
Any advice you can give me, will be greatly appreciated!

12 comments:

Terra said...

I like your brilliant solution to starting seeds away from rats and mice. I don't have ideas about deterring rabbits. In my new planter on my blog post today, I show my son nailing in a metal grid to keep gophers from the bottom. But rabbits, I don't know how to deter them. Our cat might chase them.

FlowerLady Lorraine said...

What a great solution for keeping rats from your seeds.

I've not grown vegetables because of critters taking bites out of them during the night and throwing them on the ground. Grrrrr. I hope someone can give you some helpful tips with the rabbit situation.

Have a lovely Sunday and week ~ FlowerLady

Anonymous said...

That is a great idea! We have aquariums from our kids fish and other pets in our garage...a perfect little greenhouse. Our squirrels like to steal tomatoes and apples. The birds eat my seeds frequently after planting. But growing up in Pennsylvania, everyone had large gardens and the rabbits were a big problem. I have netting for my grapes but the squirrels and birds somehow always manage to sneak in. squirrels will even eat through any material. Andrea p.s...I hate to say this if it might make you feel bad...but my dad always had a gun handy for rabbits and groundhogs.

Sally said...

Wow - that was good thinking on your part. I'm glad it worked out so wonderfully. :)

Debra said...

We have too many rabbits also. They are a pain! I have a small garden, so I do use chicken wire around the things they find tasty. I wonder if row covers would work for you? Johnny's Selected Seeds sells them-it's just a light filmy material that you lay on top of the seedlings and plants. I usually put little rocks or soil along the edges to keep the covers from blowing off. Perhaps sheer curtains would work too. Loved seeing your greenhouse-it made me want one!

Brenda Kay Ledford said...

You came up with a good idea gardening. We have problems with deer, wild turkeys, and rabbits eating our vegetables. It's very hard to keep them out of our garden. Gardening is hard work, but it's worth it when you harvest the vegetables.

NanaNor's said...

What a great idea! WE have rabbits/bunnys and so far that is the worst of it. Our back yard isn't quite big enough for a large garden and both our daughters have very large ones, so I plant in theirs.
Hugs,
Noreen

Connie said...

I love your terrarium idea. So clever. We used a fine netting over some of our plants to keep out rabbits, but we had just a small area to protect, so that might not work for you. I did find this article which might give you more ideas. Good luck!

http://www.gardeners.com/how-to/rabbit-control-in-the-garden/5465.html

Kathleen Grace said...

Brilliant use of the aquariums! So often once the kids are gone we are left with these big useless objects and no idea what to do with them. We have a lot of wildlife in the backyard and I used to lose a lot of the garden to rabbits, but that has been remedied with the raised beds. They are so far above their view I never have a problem any more.

coffeeontheporchwithme said...

We also have rabbits. It's tough because they are so destructive, but I also really like them. Your greenhouse plants look like they are coming along well. -Jenn

A Colorful World said...

So smart, using the aquariums! I am so much looking forward to having a small greenhouse in Oregon. The small "grow shelf I had covered in plastic here deteriorated in the sun, and well, the sun is just too hot most of the year to even use it. But in Oregon.... :-) Your plants look wonderful! What a great start!

Beatrice P. Boyd said...

When we lived in VA we had a large garden that was completely unprotected without any fencing or wire and fortunately we never had problems with rabbits or other animals, although we did see them around the yard. Our problems were more with insects like squash bugs or beetles.