You are working for the furry and feathery kingdom as well as yourself when you sow seeds and plant plants. Unless you are an extraordinary animal lover, you look around for ways to keep the product of your labor for yourself. But as the years and decades roll on you find yourself engaged in a difficult and never-ending war with what you call predators, if ''pests'' seem too gentle a term. In many parts of the country, Garden Enemy No. 1 is deer, highly destructive of vegetables and ornamentals and bearer of the Lyme disease tick. But important spots on this Most Unwanted list are also held by raccoons, foxes, woodchucks, rabbits, squirrels, skunks, moles, crows and the cute but voracious chipmunk.
Dogs are a mixed blessing.
They guard against intruders, but also poop up the garden. Trial and error teaches you that the best protection is a fence, equipped, if possible, with electric wiring that gives a memorable but otherwise harmless shock. If a fence is not possible for you, sprays such as Deer Away and Get Away and other commercial or homemade deterrents will work to some extent, but must be constantly renewed as rain and time decreases their efficiency. Empty soda bottles, buried with the tops exposed, whistle eerily in the wind and may scare away rabbits. Nurseries peddle natural scent repellents like coyote or fox urine.