A fence.

Agree. Fence is the best option hands down.

The sprays and homemade remedies either don't work and /or have to be reapplied so often that the rabbits just come between sprayings.

See all the discussions about keeping rabbits out that are linked below.

Dave

Here is a link that might be useful: Keeping out rabbits discussions

This post was edited by digdirt on Wed, Jan 22, 14 at 14:05

T.R.A.P. , trap.
Short of a shot gun and REAL dog, and yelling at them and throwing thing at them, TRAP is also an alternative, dead or live.

You can make cages out of any kind of flexible wire fencing and use them to exclude animals from sensitive plantings. I started making these to keep my dogs, cats and chickens away from things, and found that they exclude deer and rabbits, too. You cut a square or rectangle of fencing like a box and secure the ends with zip ties.

A fence that is 2/12 -3 ft high works fine and you can step right over it.

My garden has a double layer of wire fencing, the second layer to make the squares too small to enter. It helps keep the adults out, but the babies' bodies can flatten like a mouse and get in sometimes. Fortunately, they only like green beans and peas (this year I am trying the Burpee peas in a pot out of bunnies' reach), and beans grow back fairly quickly. I am constantly looking in the garden to make sure those little guys don't get in, and I usually catch them within hours.

Cat

Cats don't hunt preys their own size or bigger...or do they?

Get a Baxter. Mine was free. :)

I worried about rabbits the first year we had a garden because I had seen so many around the house already (despite having a dog). I bought short chicken wire fencing to put around the garden but ran out before I could finish the second bed. The second bed had several square feet of strawberries and carrots right in the front that would be free picking for the rabbits, but they never disturbed them... it seems that rabbits prefer clover and my weed-filled yard was FULL of clover. I'd watch them hop right up to the strawberries and choose the clover just in front of the bed and leave the strawberries alone. I was shocked, but in 3 years I've yet to put more fencing around that second bed and the rabbits never seemed to bother it.

If you don't want to deal with fencing, maybe plant a patch of clover for the rabbits away from your garden before deciding if a fence is really necessary.

Melissa