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.
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
3. from planting til the plants start outgrowing the enclosure, i put little
"cages" over each melon plant - this enclosure is made up of fencing
commonly available at TSC - has a mesh of 2x4" - this keeps robins and other
birds from "slicing" the plant's main stem. many years (maybe 1 in 3 years),
for unknown reasons, birds will do this - resulting in a totally severed
plant or one with many "slices" in its main stem. needless to say, this is
very detrimental to the plant's chances of success.

i can take some detailed pics of my setups if requested. each year, using
these plus other methods, i harvest way more melon than my family can
possibly consume. we are in zone 5 and primarily plant "yellow doll"
watermelon variety.

"Ignoramus11409" wrote in message
...
We are in Northern IL.

I planted watermelons in an area (front yard) that always had problems
of similar plants being victimized by some pests. Not sure which
ones. Apparently, they like eating young shoots.

How can I realiztically prevent that, thanks.

i