I love having fresh flowers in vases scattered throughout the house, but many times it means hacking away all the flowers in my garden and not being able to enjoy them outside.
A good solution to this is a cutting garden. Many common varieties of flowers make excellent candidates for a cutting garden. Check out this list of 45 fantastic cut flowers at Organic Gardening. Simply plant extra of the flowers you wish to cut to avoid having bare spots when you do pick flowers, or separate the plants you have and place them into a separate garden designated as a cutting garden, and get cutting!
On my property we have to contend not only with an ever-increasing number of rabbits, but squirrels and chipmunks as well. As such, after losing one too many strawberries to the varmints, I’ve looked into several ways to deter these rodents from enjoying the fruits of my garden before I can get a chance to.
There are several methods for preventing small animals from getting into your garden:
Raised beds. Raised beds function by planting your plants about 1 foot off the ground. Simply use bricks, wood or other materials to border the area, then fill with dirt, compost, etc., and plant as usual. For some reason, the height of the beds will keep rabbits and other animals from entering your garden.
Fencing. By putting a fence around your garden, you can keep unwanted rodents from entering. Use chicken wire or other fencing materials available at the home-improvement store. The height of the fence will depend on the size and leg span of the rodents in question — higher for deer, lower for squirrels or rabbits.
Cages. We’ve resorted to cages for our strawberry plants, to keep both the rabbits and chipmunks out. Using narrow wiring, we wrapped the material around boards and built a simple yet effective cage that the rodents can’t get into, but that allows plenty of circulation and sunlight in.
Here are photos of our strawberry cages, built with chicken wire and 2 x 2s.
