This is my vegetable, herb and pollinator garden. I last showed it in my Memorial Day post at the end of May.
It had been growing nicely until about 2 weeks ago. Then something decided that it was tasty.I’m not sure what that “something” is since we do host wild kingdom in our backyard. Most likely it’s rabbits or deer.
It’s sort of interesting what they will eat and won’t eat–they’re eating parsley and dill for example but not tarragon, which I thought would be mild enough to be gobbled up (I should just count my blessings!)
And my pole beans never get a chance to be climbers. As soon as they sprout leaves–chomp! That’s the end of that. That’s why I am not sure if it’s rabbits or deer. Everything is being nibbled so low that it really could be either.
But I have my secret weapon. This should work for either deer or rabbits (in fact, according to the package, it will even work for elk, should they happen to wander in from the West, heaven forbid! Talk about a grazing problem!)
I haven’t had to use this since 2013. Apparently other things in my yard have been tastier. This worked beautifully when I put it up in mid-July, 2013. I put it up, as you’ll see, at 2 heights, for “heavy browse,” because there’s no point in taking chances.
The instructions says to refresh it with Messina Wildlife spray after a month. I never needed to in 2013. We’ll see what happens this year.
And what does it smell like? The tape smells like herbal tea. It’s wonderful to work with and very easy to put up, and fairly unobtrusive.
The spray, however, is less wonderful to smell, so I hope I don’t need to use it. It smells like rotten eggs! But again, if it works, that’s all that matters!
Gardendaze 
This happened to us last year. I kept replanting the beans and each time they sprouted leaves they were eaten. I thing it had to be rabbits.
This is really interesting because I definitely have a Rabbit Problem here. Now I know why the prior owners planted only tiger lilies; either the rabbits don’t eat those or there were so many that the victims were unnoticeable! I got rid of the tiger lilies (hopefully) and had resigned myself to never having any Asiatics or Orientals again. How high is the “rabbit level” tape?
They recommend one level at 24″. Because I rarely follow instructions, I put the first level up just at the level where everything was getting “nibbled,” which is about 18′ currently.
Then the instructions say that for “heavy browse” you should put a second level up at 48″ which is what I did.
It’s great stuff. I got it at Amazon (of course).
Karla
I have found nothing that works reliably. Fortunately, there is not much that the deer want in the accessible part of the garden.
In my part of the country, nothing works forever except an 8 foot fence where you never forget to leave the gate open. But I just need to protect my green beans during the growing season so that’s a different thing. Short term protection is easier to achieve and I have managed to do it before. I will be optimistic that it can work again.
Karla