I am thrilled to announce that I’ve been asked to test out a new variety of green beans with the code name ‘Leporidae’.

The thrilling part for me is that these green beans have  been bred to be rabbit resistant.   Early trials have been very promising, thought the plant breeders have only done limited testing which involved placing a rabbit next to the plants at various stages of growth, from seedling to mature plants dessicated by drought and later frost.  The rabbits usually sniffed the plants and then quickly hopped away.

The plant breeders have decided based on these promising early results to expand the trials for ‘Leporidae’, planting the beans in areas where rabbits have previously been a problem.  That’s why my garden is the perfect trial garden.

I have battled rabbits for years. I’ve tried trapping-removing-releasing, spoon barricades, ground hot pepper dust, truces, agreements, and pretty much every other trick in the book.   The most successful method was the spoon barricades. But it was a pain in the you know what to set up a spoon barricade if you are going to grow a big patch of beans, not to mention it looked ridiculous in the garden.

That’s why I am so thrilled to trial these green beans.  The plant breeders have been a little vague about what makes these green beans rabbit resistant, but it involves genes and splicing. Oh, I know what everyone is thinking now. These are GMO beans. They put rabbit genes in green beans. They are bad for us.  But, the plant breeders assured me that the beans don’t taste a bit like rabbit to humans, because we don’t have as keen a sense of smell or taste as rabbits do.  But the rabbits smell their scent on the beans and refuse to eat them.

They did mention that if I see any fur on the beans, it should be easy enough to wipe it off before cooking the beans, and I should avoid eating the beans raw.

Anyway, I am quite excited to receive these green bean seeds on this first day of April. I am counting the days until ‘Leporidae’ green beans are growing and producing in my garden.