Gardening for buns!

[kralspace]

Thanks to the info from Binky bunny and all last month, I found a weeping willow and two apple trees last weekend to plant in my back yard. I used to have a regular garden, but wound up giving most of the veggies away since I can’t tolerate eating most of them, so this year it will be parsely, greens and other bunny food.

I found a site to order some Dutch White Clover too, which will be perfect in a large part of my yard that’s too shaded for grass anyway. This helps out with my exercise goal since I’m more motivated to get out and dig for the bunnies rather than a bunch of stuff I’ll give away. I’m sure I’ll still get most of our stuff from the store, but the closest one that carries decent greens is 20 miles away and it would be nice to just go out back and clip what we need in a pinch.

I’d love to hear any suggestions of what I could plant. I live in central Texas so some things don’t do well here in the heat, but can be coaxed along in the shade. I’ve always gardened organically with no pesticides so dealing with competing bugs is always fun.

Kathy

[Sage Cat]

Hey Kathy,

I think that Cilantro and peppers should grow well in Texas. Mint is pretty much a weed – I think it grows any where.

My brother lives in San Antonio and has a big herb garden. His rosemary bushes are massive, Plus they are a perennial – they keep growing all winter.

You could always plant a garden full of Dandelions – the neighbors would love You!!!!!!

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

hey Kathy

I’ve no idea about what will grow for you in texas, my thumb is not so green, but here’s what I grew in my bunny garden this year!

I grew cilantro, parsley, oregano and kale, marigolds and roses (believe it or not, these are OK to feed to bunnies, plus roses are gorgeous and marigolds keep the mosquitos away -if you have any!)

[osprey]

Basil is pretty easy to grow, as are oregano and sage.  At least for me, the herbs were more of a treat than a meal for the buns, they grew pretty slowly (except for the mint).

Over the winter I am growing radishes.  Mine really like the leaves, and they eat the roots as well.  While the weather is still cool, you can try carrots from seed.  The roots never grow for me, but the buns get the tops.

[kralspace]

wow, I never thought about peppers, roses, herbs, etc. Walmart has lots of marigolds now, do they eat just the flowers, or do you give them the leaves too? I have a basil plant I ‘ll see what they think of….

the only carrots with green tops in our store are the ‘organic’ ones, and I don’t think I could bring myself to pay $5 for a few of them….lol. Those are good ideas, just growing them for the tops.

I treat my roses with a systemic insecticide so I guess they’re definitely off limits. (if I didn’t, I’d have no roses tho)

thanks, Kathy

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Umn, to be safe, I only gave them the flowers, because I couldn’t find info on whether the entire plant was OK to eat. I only found it listed as non-toxic etc. So I just fed the flower, since I read on a number of sites that the flowers were good for bunnies I only had KOkanee at the time, and she LOVED them lol!

[osprey]

Calendula (Pot Marigold) is another easy to grow flower that bunnies love.  There is something so funny in watching them with a big yellow or orange moustache as they chomp down a flower.

 

[ScooterandAnnette]

Well, there are carrots, which are particularly good for the tops. Ditto with beets and radishes for their tops too. Romaine is also good. Even if it’s overgrown and beyond human consumption, you can pick out the leaves and even the stem for the bunnies.

We’ve found all of these fairly easy to grow. Keep in mind that we have a pretty short growing season at 55.5 degrees north, so I don’t know how this will work in central TX. The house we’re in has a fairly large garden plot, which we’ve planted every year. But for various reasons, we’ve never really exploited it as well as we could so a fair amount of what we intended to plant for ourselves wind up for the bunnies. (“Oops! I guess we really should have harvested the romaine before the stalks developed….well, it’s still good for the bunnies!”  “Well, I guess we should have been harvesting carrots every so often instead of most of it all at once…guess the bunnies are getting a lot of carrot tops for the next little while!”)

As far as bugs go, we have a slug problem in our garden, don’t use pesticides (even though Scooter as an environmental research scientist has stockpiles of illegal pesticides in his lab marked “FOR RESEARCH USE ONLY” , and haven’t done anything special to keep them out. This has hurt some of the leafy vegetables but we can still find enough that the bunnies love. So maybe a bug problem won’t be too much of a drain for bunny greens.

So even if you don’t try all that hard, you can probably wind up growing quite a bit for bunny consumption, if not for you or me.

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