Can Baking Soda Really Keep Rabbits From Devouring Your Garden?

When you find signs of a pest in the garden, you need a quick fix. After an internet search, you will certainly come across suggestions that sound like an easy answer to your problem. If you already have the supplies on hand, it may not hurt to try –- some garden hacks really work! But keep in mind that just because an idea is published doesn't mean it is effective. If your struggle is with rabbits destroying your garden, you may find advice for using baking soda to repel them, but there's no evidence that this will help.

Sometimes, it's hard to know what kind of critter is devouring your garden. If you find small round droppings near the damaged plants, that's a clear sign that your foe is a rabbit. They also tend to eat the tender leaves of plants like hostas. Rabbits are quite neat in their feasting habits, so you'll find your damaged plants clipped as though they were cut with gardening shears.

There is a myth that placing a circle of baking soda around your affected plants will discourage rabbits from eating them. While baking soda is toxic to rabbits, there's no reason to think they would consume it. Instinctively, they may be put off by the smell, but if there's a feast on the other side of that thin white line, it's unlikely to send them running away.

The real concern about using baking soda in your garden is its effect on your soil. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. If you use enough to repel rabbits from your entire garden, you're going to need a lot of baking soda, and that amount could be detrimental to the very plants you're trying to protect. Excess salt in the soil kills greenery, as well as the good fungi, bacteria, and insects required to make nutrients available. Essentially, baking soda can kill the entire soil environment, and once all that salt is in the ground, it will take a long time to flush out.

But wait — there's more. Garden plants thrive in soil that is neutral to slightly acidic on the pH scale. Baking soda is alkaline, which means if you add much of it to your soil, it will lower the acidity level, which, again, will do more harm to your garden than a few rabbits ever could.

Even though the baking soda myth has been debunked, there are plenty of other safe ways to protect your garden from rabbits without resorting to lethal measures. The safest, simplest, and most effective method to keep bunnies from munching on your plants is a physical barrier. Chicken wire is effective as a fence or a plant cage to keep hungry rabbits out.

Human hair sprinkled around the garden is another effective solution. When rabbits smell the presence of a natural predator, they will not risk getting too close. Maybe it's awkward, but you can ask your hairstylist for some hair; just be sure that they understand it's for your garden –- otherwise, the conversation could get uncomfortable. Other unpleasant scents or tastes can keep rabbits from visiting your space. Red pepper flakes scattered around your garden plants make the area unappealing. You can also make your own hot pepper spray to apply to the leaves or blossoms of the plants on which you are seeing the most damage. One spicy bite should send those rabbits running to someone else's garden.