Hare-raising harvests

Welcome, everyone. And the answer is “whistle berries.” Question at the end of the column – no fair peeking.

Speaking of fairs, my friend of 25 years, fellow Medina County Fair Board director and former board president Michael Gall is truly a friend with benefits.

Why, you ask?

On his Brunswick Hills farm, he raises rabbits, specifically New Zealand Whites (completely American bred in the United States). Gall has 10 does and three bucks. He raises rabbits for county youth 4-H projects and the livestock sale, while some are sold for meat consumption.

Those benefits? Yours truly gets buckets full of garden gold, better known as rabbit manure.

Here’s the scoop on bunny poop.

First, let’s get technical. Rabbits produce two types of droppings: fecal pellets and cecotropes (cecal pellets), which are not feces. Much like a cow chewing its cud, the rabbit is a type of pseudo-ruminant. Ingested food passes through the digestive tract and is eliminated, then the rabbit re-ingests this partially digested food, receiving the majority of its nutrition. Being grazing herbivores, the digestion process never stops. Rabbits eat and poop at the same time some 200 to 300 times a day!

Rabbit droppings are a super fertilizer, being twice as rich as chicken manure and four times more potent than cow or horse manure, with no weed seeds. They have the tremendous advantage of being a “cold” manure, meaning they can be spread directly around plants without fear of burning and do not need to be composted first.

Dry, odorless and in a convenient pelletized form, rabbit manure provides slow-release benefits while being abundant in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N-P-K), minerals, trace elements and micronutrients. Use it as a plant top dressing, mulch or work it into the soil, which helps improve soil structure and provides food for earthworms. It can also be added to a compost pile as an activator, helping heat the compost heap.

Here’s a recipe for “bunny brew” (rabbit manure tea): Place a generous shovel full of manure in a burlap bag or porous cloth. Tie the four corners together to make a tea bag. Steep it in a 5-gallon bucket of water for a week. Remove the bag and suspend it above the bucket until it stops dripping. Use 1 cup of this concentrated manure tea per gallon of water. It can be safely used on all plants, including vegetables and houseplants.

My deepest thanks to Michael and his heaping buckets of bunny berries.

Pollen power

To increase tomato pollination and produce more tomatoes per plant, try this easy and quick tip.

Tomatoes are self-pollinating, with both male and female reproductive parts within each flower. When flowers open, the male parts produce pollen that falls onto the female parts. The flower is fertilized, then begins to grow seeds and tomato fruit.

Outdoor tomato plants are aided by wind movement and pollinator activity. By lightly tapping the blooms, you can simulate this important process and help ensure better pollination.

Use a pencil or small brush to gently tap the plants. Do not tap too vigorously. The goal is to help the pollen fall onto the flowers.

Question: What is the cowboy slang word for beans?

Until we meet again – peace!