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Nifty Tips
Make your yard less appealing to hungry critters by putting lids on your garbage cans and keeping the area clear of debris.
No hot peppers handy? Try blending a clove of garlic, a small onion, and 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper with water; strain, add water, and spray.
If you’ve got burrowing guests, like woodchucks, you may have to bury the bottom of your fences a foot deep. Eventually, they’ll give up and go away.

Beat the Grass

    “Every garden needs a fence, because everything eats a garden. Rabbits, squirrels, lambs. Chickens can eat a bed of lettuce in nothing flat. If you get a cow in a garden, the cow can demolish it.”
    —M ILDRED K ALISH
H OW TO C HASE A S NAKE OUT OF Y OUR G ARDEN
    Step 1:
If you spot a snake in your vegetable patch, get a hold of yourself real quick. If you’ve got some distance, by all means keep it. If you don’t, and the snake is rattling, hissing, or staring you down, freeze until it slithers away. (It will, so long as it has a viable exit. It’s more afraid of you than you are of it.) Then exhale, run inside, have a gimlet, share your tale of bravery with all your friends, and then skip to step 4.
    Step 2:
If you’re at a safe distance and you’re 100 percent confident in your ability to classify the snakes in your area, then ID your slithering garden guest. If it’s poisonous and has made a permanent home in your garden, call an expert to remove it. If it’s poisonous and just passing through, wait until it leaves the area and skip to step 4. If it’s not at all poisonous, proceed to step 3. If you have absolutely no idea what kind of snake it is, keep your distance, wait for it to leave, and skip to step 4.
    Step 3:
Decide what you want to do. Some gardeners actually like to keep friendly snakes around, because while they don’t eat vegetables or people, they do eat pests, like mice, squirrels, slugs, and earwigs.If that just doesn’t cut it for you and you’d rather that nonpoisonous snake find another home, grab a broom and swish it away.
    Step 4:
Make that snake’s return less likely by making your lawn and garden a less fun place for it to live in. Keep your grass short, your hedges trimmed, and your lowest tree branches at least a few feet off the ground. Also, eliminate any mulch or rock piles or fallen logs (after checking them for snakes first!). They make great homes for snakes and their favorite snacks (rodents), and if they’re gone, your snake will likely go, too.

More Nifty Tips
Wear knee-high rubber boots while gardening to protect your ankles (or at least give you a fashionable sense of security).
Get a cat. Good ones will hunt snakes, or scare them away.
Know the first-aid procedures for your area. If you live in a place with poisonous snakes, be on guard, and protect yourself and your pets. Keep a snake-bite kit near the backdoor of your house.

Make No Waste

    “I can’t remember ever throwing things out. We didn’t even have garbage collection where we lived. Scraps were fed to the chickens or saved for the cats or other critters. Whatever else we had, we tilled into the garden.”
    —A LICE L OFT
H OW TO C OMPOST
    Step 1:
Make a bin. Find a plastic or aluminum garbage can (with a lid) and drill quarter-inch holes, four to six inches apart, all over the sides and bottom, so your compost can breathe. If you don’t have a drill, use a hammer and a big nail to pierce each hole. (Don’t make holes in the lid—or in your nose or ears or belly button, unless that’s your thing.)
    Step 2:
Get it started. Almost everything natural can be categorized as either a “brown” or a “green.” To make compost happen, you’ll need both colors. Three parts brown to every one part green works very well. So, start by filling your bin with your “browns,” or carbon-rich material, like fallen leaves (preferably chopped); pine needles; small twigs; sawdust from untreated, solid wood (not plywood); newspaper, junk mail, or cardboard (all preferably