The author’s “good bunny” never jumps into the raised beds, but was willing to pose for this picture for a few bunny treats. One of the best animal manures for enriching garden soil is rabbit poop.

“‘Now my dears,’ said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, ‘you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don’t go into Mr. McGregor’s garden. Your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.’”

— Mrs. Rabbit to Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter in “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” by Beatrix Potter (1902)

According to beloved English author and illustrator Beatrix Potter, “Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries. But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor’s garden and squeezed under the gate!”

We all know “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and that disobedient Peter has a most-wretched day trying to elude Farmer McGregor’s rake and Mrs. McGregor’s pie dish. After losing his shoes and his jacket and almost drowning in a watering can, Peter finally makes it safely back home, but he’s too ill and worn out to eat any dinner. On the other hand, his obedient sisters enjoy a fine meal of bread and milk and blackberries.

I read this story to my daughter, Kerra, when she was in kindergarten, and after I finished, I wanted to emphasize its lesson. “Do you think Peter Rabbit got what he deserved after doing exactly what his Mommy told him not to do,” I asked her pointedly.

“Well, Peter didn’t get any dinner, but he did get his own book and the other bunnies didn’t,” my daughter pointed out. Of course, she was right — the book is called “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” not “The Tale of Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail.” The good bunnies are boring, so they only appear as bit characters, whereas the bad bunny is the star of the show.

So much for a lesson about the consequences of being naughty. I knew right then that I needed to keep both eyes on Kerra.

Beatrix Potter is one of 20 authors featured in Jackie Bennett’s book “The Writer’s Garden: How Gardens Inspired Our Best-Loved Authors” (2014). Bennett tells us Potter had already published “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” and several other children’s stories destined to become classics, before she bought the 34-acre Hill Top Farm in the Lake District of northwest England. In fact, she based her vegetable garden at Hill Top on the garden she had described and illustrated in “Peter’s book,” complete with the garden gate that she painted green.

Bennett writes, “Now, for the first time, Beatrix had her own outside space, which would become her solace and her inspiration.” Over the years, Potter grew a variety of vegetables, fruit and berries, including strawberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries, cabbages, onions, rhubarb, artichokes, lettuce and potatoes.

Her cottage-style garden was a riotous mixture of perennial flowers and herbs including: white-flowered wisteria, peonies, white saxifrage, Siberian iris, azaleas, lilies, hollyhocks, phlox, Japanese anemones, snowdrops, daffodils and Japanese primroses. (For a complete listing of plants grown at Hill Top, visit the Beatrix Potter Society’s website at https://beatrixpottersociety.org.uk)

I learned from reading “The Writer’s Garden” that Beatrix Potter led a double life. She spent part of her time writing and conducting business at Hill Top Farm and, after 1913 when she married a local solicitor named William Heelis, she lived the other half of her life at their nearby estate called Castle Cottage. Bennett writes, “At Castle Cottage, she was always known at Mrs. Heelis, the farmer and solicitor’s wife, who protected her privacy fiercely.”

Potter went on to write other children’s stories, including one called “The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies” (1909). In it, Peter’s dutiful sister, Flopsy, grows up to have six young bunnies of her own who, apparently, take after their uncle, and Flopsy must save them after Mr. McGregor catches them in a sack. Flopsy finally becomes the heroine of the story, but I’m sure my daughter would tell me the title again focuses on her mischievous children.

When Potter died in 1943, she bequeathed Hill Top Farm to the National Trust in England, which continues to care for the property today. Fittingly, the head gardener at Hill Top Farm for many years was named Peter (Tasker), who spent a good portion of his time chasing away bad bunnies from the garden.

Did you know?

Some gardeners use Irish Spring soap to keep rabbits, deer, and mice — even cats — out of the garden. Slice a bar of soap into chunks; place a few chunks in cheesecloth and tie with string. Lay the soap pouches in different areas of the garden. Supposedly, bunnies and other furry critters hate the smell.