Kill the wabbit, KILL THE WABBIT!
Silly rabbits. There's been so much snow cover this year that they've taken to eating the bark off my knee-high apple espalier that surrounds my raised bed vegetable potager.
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| Bit the branches right apart. Above is a pile of their evidence. |
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| Stripped the branches bare. |
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| Got all the new shoots. |
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| Stripped all along the branch. |
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| Left behind lots of bunny scat. And I mean LOTS. |
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| There are two espaliers - and they munched through both. |
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| Loser lapins. |
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| What it looks like in season. |
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| When it was young. If it survives, I'll be starting from scratch. |
In retaliation, I present a Crockpot Rabit Stew recipe for you:
1 rabbit
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
425 g diced tomatoes
1 cup red wine
1 cup water
100 g button mushrooms, sliced
125 g shortcut bacon, sliced
2 medium carrots, chopped
2 medium onions, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon oregano
1/4 cup flour
DIRECTIONS
1 Grind pepper over the rabbit and place in the crock pot.
2 Combine all other ingredients EXCEPT FLOUR in a large bowl, mix well and pour over the rabbit.
3 Cover and cook on low for 6 hours for a small rabbit, or up to 8 hours for a large rabbit. Actually cook for half an hour less as below.
4 Thirty minutes before ready blend flour with 1/2 cup of water until it is a smooth paste, add to the pot and stir well to thicken and continue cooking covered for a further 30 minutes.
5 Give it a good stir and allow to rest 10-15 minutes before serving.
6 At this point the rabbit should be so tender that you can tear pieces off with a fork to serve rather than cut. Just scoop it all out onto a plate.
7 You'll end up with bones in the dish so eat much like you would a fish dish being careful for bones. Serve along with a nice crusty roll to soak up the juices.
Ugh, sorry to hear they did such a number on your espalier fruit trees. Usually I have to worry about the rabbits girdling the main trunk of our trees, but this year the snow was so high so fast that they can only get the mid-level branches, which I'm OK sacrificing. I hope your trees come back!
ReplyDeleteI do blame it on the weather. Ive had the rabbits around for years without this much damage. Usually we share some of what I grow in teh garden, but they've never done any significant damage.
DeleteThose wabbits. They are wicked. I'm hoping the snowy, bitter cold winter has done ours in.
ReplyDeleteI read up on rabbits. Many do not make it through the winters, but they are such prodigious breeders that the losses don't amount to much on whole.
DeleteMy own wabbit tale...http://www.talking-to-plants.blogspot.com/2014/02/rabbits-in-garden-life-as-we-know-it.html
ReplyDeleteYou'll like the ending!
I love your rabbit story. Such a happy ending, except, of course for, Buck. Not a good day for Buck.
DeleteI'm not very familiar with the problem for rabbits and winter since most of my plant growing has been in the tropics although there once as a child I had ducks and one day they went on a spree and nibbled all the leaves off my Four O'clocks (yes I started gardening at a very early age). I was mad at them but forgave them but when they started feasting on the vegetable of the farm my parents said we had to eat them and/or give them away. I was not happy and ironically several decades later on they tried to start a duck farming project but none of their ducks laid any viable eggs ... mine just bred like ... rabbits.
ReplyDeleteIs there no way that you can protect the tree by perhaps wrapping it in burlap or something thick but flexible so the rabbits do not do any more damage? I hope you trees recover.
“All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you; digger, listener, runner, Prince with the swift warning. Be cunning, and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.”
ReplyDelete― Richard Adams, Watership Down
I guess this was one of those instances where he got caught, killed and eaten. Oh and thanks for the Crockpot Rabit Stew recipe. I will try it next time I find rabbit in the supermarket ... although I cannot remember seeing any here in the UK although I have seen it often on the Continent.
They got my Japanese Maple years ago and took out the rose standard this year. You are right on the snow cover. I am wondering what else they got too.
ReplyDelete