string beans plants being eaten

[radioman]

GRRRRRR 3 days ago, I spreaded the rabbit,deer repellent granules in my garden to keep the animals out and yesterday I saw HALF of my string bean crop leaves eaten!!!!! I saw a couple small bunnies hopping around, couple different sizes of deer across my garden so its not working. Question is should I attempt to replant beans in same spot or give up for summer?

 

[bp fick]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

You've plenty of time to re-plant green beans.

However, you might as well surrender the field, if you don't want to mess with fencing of some kind. We garden for market and we'd have nothing if we didn't use fencing.

Yes, it is horribly frustrating.

 

[teg]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

Something was eating some of our stuff... turned out to be a groundhog. We put up a 1 foot tall electric fence and have not had problems since.

My boss had problems, put up deer fence and still had problems... with the game camera, his problem was a groundhog, too.

 

[Bird]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

I never had a deer problem, but when the cottontails were doing damage in my garden a neighbor told me to spread blood meal around the garden and the rabbits wouldn't cross it. It actually worked for me, but of course you need to re-apply it after a rain, and it sure does make the grass grow thick and fast around the garden.:laughing:

 

[TCJatko]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

Yeras ago I lived in the Sacramento River delta and a neighbor had an extensive garden that occupied a large amount of her time. One day someone left a gate open and the cows got in. Anything not eaten was trampled flat. Frustrating indeed.

 

[JDgreen227]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

We have rabbits everplace and without a fence most everything in the garden would be destroyed in short order. You have plenty of time to replant but have you considered putting a 2 foot high rabbit guard fence around your beans? It does not have to have many posts nor be very tight.

 

[radioman]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

I probably have enough time to replant -- but how to stop the darn animals? I used to put a 5 foot high deer fence up every year after planting but gave up on that. I thought about getting hardware cloth (small square wire) and bend it to a U shape to cover the plants. does anyone like this idea?

 

[oldballs]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

I probably have enough time to replant -- but how to stop the darn animals? I used to put a 5 foot high deer fence up every year after planting but gave up on that. I thought about getting hardware cloth (small square wire) and bend it to a U shape to cover the plants. does anyone like this idea?

That would be a lot of trouble now and later and relatively expensive, if you have much garden. For rabbits, a two foot poultry netting (chicken wire) would probably work. For deer it's got to be about 7 feet. My main garden (50 x 100) has a 7 foot deer fence attached to a 4 ft field wire which I've attached a two foot chicken wire level with the ground. Nothing gets in except the birds which aren't a problem. Digging 6 inch corner posts holes by hand and driving 6 ft T posts was a lot of work. The deer net is held up by 1/2 inch pvc water pipe attached to the above solid posts. I garden every year now, with peace of mind. Now.......if it would just rain. At one time, the deer population was 200 per square mile and squirrels over ran my place as the city development surged my way

 

[JDgreen227]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

That would be a lot of trouble now and later and relatively expensive, if you have much garden. For rabbits, a two foot poultry netting (chicken wire) would probably work. For deer it's got to be about 7 feet. My main garden (50 x 100) has a 7 foot deer fence attached to a 4 ft field wire which I've attached a two foot chicken wire level with the ground. Nothing gets in except the birds which aren't a problem. Digging 6 inch corner posts holes by hand and driving 6 ft T posts was a lot of work. The deer net is held up by 1/2 inch pvc water pipe attached to the above solid posts. I garden every year now, with peace of mind. Now.......if it would just rain. At one time, the deer population was 200 per square mile and squirrels over ran my place as the city development surged my way

I have deer everywhere out here and none have ever gone over my 5 foot high fence (knock wood) in 15 years of gardening. A 2 foot high rabbit fence zip tied to the bottom of the 5 foot high fence pretty well keeps out anything else. However, since this stray cat decided to make his home here 2 1/2 years ago the number of small varmints that would raid my garden has REALLY taken a sharp decline.

 

[radioman]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

I have deer everywhere out here and none have ever gone over my 5 foot high fence (knock wood) in 15 years of gardening. A 2 foot high rabbit fence zip tied to the bottom of the 5 foot high fence pretty well keeps out anything else. However, since this stray cat decided to make his home here 2 1/2 years ago the number of small varmints that would raid my garden has REALLY taken a sharp decline.

send your cat over my way -- I seen a few young bunny rabbits over the weekend . I am going to plant more beans to replace the ones eaten for summer long crop and cover with fencing.

 

[forgeblast]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

It is frustrating, I just replaced my fence after a bear knocked it down to get to my bee hives. Dam thing destroyed a years worth of work and killed 3 hives.
I had blackberrys grow too large and short out my electric fence. So I had to build a new trellis to let the blackberries grow over the fence, and I added another doorway just so i didnt feel trapped in the garden. I am going out to plant some thing in about 5 mins. Ill post some pics.

 

[randy41]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

i've not done this for beans but i think the idea of low tunnels covered with some kind of netting would work just fine and not be expensive. i use #9 wire cut into 6' lengths and then bent into a hoop shape by sticking one end in the ground and then the other. i cover this with row cover material but there's no reason why you couldn't cover it with some cheap plastic netting. i plan to do this with my next lettuce planting to protect from deer. the length of the wire of course depends on the width of your planting bed.

 

[oldballs]

That ain't no cat.........that's a tiger.

 

[JDgreen227]

That ain't no cat.........that's a tiger.

His name is Tiggs....I picked the name because he had the striped coat, after about a year I went to the Urban Dictionary to see if the name meant anything...that's how I learned why he was always "hanging around" :laughing:

 

[k0ua]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

Something was eating some of our stuff... turned out to be a groundhog. We put up a 1 foot tall electric fence and have not had problems since.

My boss had problems, put up deer fence and still had problems... with the game camera, his problem was a groundhog, too.

Jeez Teg that "hog" is awfully cute, mugging for the camera like that:laughing:
sure you don't want to make a pet out of him? :laughing::laughing::laughing: After you feed him all of your veggies:laughing:

James K0UA

 

[Bob77064]

Re: string beans pants being eaten

I have deer everywhere out here and none have ever gone over my 5 foot high fence (knock wood) in 15 years of gardening. A 2 foot high rabbit fence zip tied to the bottom of the 5 foot high fence pretty well keeps out anything else. However, since this stray cat decided to make his home here 2 1/2 years ago the number of small varmints that would raid my garden has REALLY taken a sharp decline.

That looks like our cat, he keeps the rabbit population down here. Now if I could teach him to ger the moles.

 

[Carl_NH]

We use plant skydd on the hostas and such - if you spray your beans just as they leaf out before they start growing beans it should protect them for the entire growing season.

Untreated hostas here get mowed down by deer and we have about 1000 hostas and maybe three have been eaten by deer. Its a combination of pigs blood that smells bad and deer stay away for 4-5 months - I apply it using my Stihl Backpack blower/sprayer.

Carl