Gah! Something ate all my cabbages over night

[BalconyFarmer]

Rabbits are easy to fence out, you just need a 24" fence, but you want to sink it a few inches underground to deter digging in.

As I said in an earlier post, I've seen ground squirrels do the same thing, and I just remembered wood rats will also skeletonize cabbages and other brassicas, especially when they sweeten up after the first freeze. If it's ground squirrels or wood rats, you'll have to enclose the plants entirely--if there are any gaps, they'll find one, and if they can't find a gap, they'll try to chew one. Rodents are the worst pests, definitely worse than deer or rabbits.

I find it's better to act as predator, and attack rodents where they live. Eliminate habitat, make them cross open ground to get to your garden, set traps regularly. You can also put up raptor perches--places for hawks and owls to land, to survey the land below for rodents. Owl boxes are a good option for rat control, since rats and owls are both nocturnal.

Plant the dead rodents with a couple handfuls of leaves or straw around the drip line of a fruit tree--make them "one with the orchard".