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Baby rabbit is my best guess. Are slugs out in 30-40 degrees? Would slugs eat the tops of a three inch plant? Guess I can put some beer out there to see if it's slugs. Never been a problem here.

I saw a rabbit for the first time here last year and where there's one, there's apt to be two and where there's two, there will soon be many.

I did finally find my poultry netting and also have 16+ foot of 4 foot wide metal window screen.

My field fence is below.

I can see a young rabbit getting through that. The gate's no problem for rabbits as it's the 2x4 openings and it's tight between the posts. Lettuce hasn't been bothered and most everything else has been eaten. Still a few left but I have to start seeds again anyway so I'll wrap with poultry wire today, stick beer out tonight and see if I catch slugs. I'll go out when dark too and see what I can see. I'll take an inventory today and see what's what tomorrow.

Found the poultry wire right up near the house, three foot off the ground after looking out back on the ground expecting to find it buried in leaves. While I was out back, I found two half full 50lb feed bags with chicken manure and probably mixed with our silt soil. I dug it up from the original coop spot after I moved it. The sun ate through the feed bags so it's been rained/snowed on but is nice fine crumbly blackness. I just have no idea how strong it will be. Might be neutral by now. It's 4-5 years old. I'm going to transplant something into it and also try starting a few seeds of some sort into it and see what happens.

Take a couple of years off of gardening and you forget what you have and since I have no garden shed, forget where things are.

What I did for peas and beans was to use large tomato cages wrapped in chicken wire. I planted the snow peas inside those and they grew up inside and supported the plants, and the critters couldn’t get to them.

However, something did eat the tops off, and I think it was a woodchuck that climbed the wire and snacked on what it could reach.

Unfortunately, being in town, shooting the suckers wasn’t permitted.

We had 2 hunks of what looked like rabbit hair (more undercoat type) when I came out of the house the other day. One hunk was on the sidewalk & one nearby in the grass. We have foxes in the area - one turned on the porch motion light trotting across the sidewalk about 2-3 weeks ago - I actually saw it. I suspect a fox caught one of the rabbits that hang around under our bushes. We have hawks too, but this had to have happened overnight.

We didn’t have rabbits around for years, but they’re making a comeback. No problems in my garden thank goodness - the fencing I have does a good job keeping them out.

I was thinking it was probably a baby rabbit. Could be a cut worm, not sure if they are active yet, but I have lost the tops of some of my baby beets. It is probably early for the slugs and cutworms .

Your fencing (Same type as mine) stops the big ones but not the little ones. I had to double up and use 36” 1” opening chicken wire all around the bottom of the outside and if possible dig it in. Had to use 1”x 3” on the bottom in places too. (One year I lost 28 12 inch high broccoli plants to rabbits and that educated me about fencing!)

While I was out back, I found two half full 50lb feed bags with chicken manure and probably mixed with our silt soil. I dug it up from the original coop spot after I moved it. The sun ate through the feed bags so it's been rained/snowed on but is nice fine crumbly blackness. I just have no idea how strong it will be. Might be neutral by now. It's 4-5 years old. I'm going to transplant something into it and also try starting a few seeds of some sort into it and see what happens.

Three Komatsuna seeds sowed a few days ago just popped up over night. It was crusty loamy-silt/manure mix from the ground where the chicken coop was 4-5 years ago. Now it's dark and fluffy. Will be interesting to see how the seedlings do. I've got half a dozen Shisito seedlings and am going to pot one up to this loamy-silt/manure mix and see what that does. I'll wait a few days to see how the komatsuna goes first. Wish I had some NPK test kits.