well......i've read about many many "chemical" methods over the years.
depending on what the pest is, they have varying degrees of effectivenes.
sadly, even in best case senarios, u're stuck reapplying any such method
every so often as well as after each rain.

the web is full of many do it yourself home mixtures that should at least
get u started. for me, the wildlife has been entirely too aggressive and the
only effective control has been fencing.

"Ignoramus11409" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 14:47:40 GMT, brickled wrote:
u name it - i've faced about every watermelon pest out there - please be
more specific as to what has ailed you in the past.

after years of trying less energy-intensive methods, i've resorted to
the
following:

1. 2 foot rabbit fence around the entire melon patch - this keeps out
rabbits (they often trash my sweet corn too) and turtles.

That's good, since I also planted some corn as well.

Are there are chemical methods? Such as sprinkling cayenne pepper around?

2. 10 foot t-posts spaced every 10 feet around the entire melon patch
with a
16 guage wire run every 8" from just above the rabbit fence to the top
of
the t-posts. this is sadly the only method i've tried that actually
keeps
the deer from trashing the melon/corn patch. in the following picture u
can
kind of get the idea of what i mean by this setup - i happen to be
showing
corn in this pic but the same principles apply to the melon patch side
of
the garden -
http://home.earthlink.net/~brickled/...arden05008.jpg

I do not think that deer are an issue.

i