I think the dog ate my (home)work. Actually, the dog is sitting quietly by the front door. It is the deer, bunnies, slugs and climbing cutworms that ate my work. My hard work. Just last night I planted my Minuteman Cauliflower outdoors in Qualicum Beach. Yes it was beautiful and it had six leaves. It was just the right size for planting. You had to see it to believe the huge white heads of cauliflower I had last year in June from transplants like these. Not so this year.  This morning, disaster struck: the tiny seedlings were all gone.

Tonight we are putting out rat traps and planning to put on our headlamps to head outdoors and discover what is eating my little plants. Maybe it is slugs. It rained last night – this could have brought them out. But my other favourite plant, Tiara Cabbage, was in the ground for over a week and it was gone this morning too. So today I seeded more cabbage and more cauliflower indoors. It is heartbreaking but true. Gardening is never as simple as it seems.

Growing in the warmish climate of Vancouver Island gives you all kinds of advantages. Cool crops like cauliflower and cabbage flourish in our moist climate and will form big beautiful heads two to four months from seed.  I have a great deer fence so I know it wasn’t the deer after my cauliflower. I checked at night and it wasn’t slugs either because the plants were gone, not slimed and partially missing.   (Although I caught a few slugs and dropped them in a jar with soapy water.) We also caught a rat in a trap.

This is not a bunny-proof fence. In fact we are pretty sure the bunnies came right in and helped themselves to our crop last night

And then, as I was looking around I saw the really big gaps in my fence and I knew right away what the problem was. The bunnies, suddenly so plentiful had simply climbed through the lovely open design fence and helped themselves to the fresh new crops. We quickly rolled out a measure of hardware wire to line the inside of the fence. I don’t mind sharing the garden but I don’t want to give it all away to the bunnies. Those thieves took it all and will be back for more.  They will be surprised by the hardware wire now in place. Seriously what was I thinking?

Thieving Bunny from No Guff Vegetable Gardening by Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs