The Bunny Solution

Prior to the spring of 2022, I was able to manage the bunny problem pretty well with a small poultry wire fence. It worked, but I didn’t like it. Being a tall guy, stepping over the fence wasn’t a huge problem for me. My wife hated it. It was hard for her to step over it. We had to come up with another solution. I thought I had found the perfect solution: tiered raised planter boxes.

Everything looked awesome. Six planter boxes with 2 tiers each would more or less give me at the least the same amount of space that I had when I planted everything straight into the ground, plus no more chickenwire fences and no more bending down to pull weeds. Total win. Just about everything I could ask for. They looked nice and they were going to be completely functional.

I made so many mistakes when I built these. Honestly, I am a bit of a novice (I mean, if you can’t tell that by looking at the picture I don’t know what to tell you). My first mistake was using my nail gun without also using the glue. The nails just didn’t hold well enough. The second mistake I made was that I forgot that gravity was a thing. I nailed all of the boards at the bottom of each tier to the underside of the tiers. Soil, especially wet soil, is heavy. Gravity and the wrong kind of fasteners led to a disaster. Before I knew it, the bottom of the boxes gave way. For the most part, I was able to fix them, but it wasn’t ideal.

The soil in my garden has been tilled, amended, and whatever else you do to make good fertile soil for your garden. It’s nice and soft and perfect for the garden. Like a dingdong, I didn’t take this into account when I placed the planters. I should have put pavers under each leg, but I didn’t. Before long, they started sinking. My once awesome looking planter boxes were no longer were completely functional and they looked like hot garbage.

You would think that the fails would end there with the planter boxes, but I have plenty more to share. Stay tuned in!