EAT YOUR VEGETABLES: Maryann James posts on vegetable gardening every Tuesday.

A couple of weeks ago, lovely commenter Felicia volunteered her gardening stats -- second-year gardener, first-time commenter, -- and admitted to a problem in her abundant vegetable garden:

Last year I had so many tomatoes, cukes, cilantro, mint and a few okra. This year I was much more adventurous and planted peas, green beans, cukes, tomatoes, basil, habanero peppers and oregano that bloomed from last year. Anyway, I am so excited, but I found that the rabbits and squirrels are eating away at my veggies!! I am so bummed out! any ides how to get rid of the critters? (in a humane way of course)

Word is that the White House is having similar problems. Their solution: natural pesticides and fine netting. Garden Variety readers have also weighed in on the squirrel issues before. Their suggestions? Get a dog (or at least, spread neighbors' dog hair around). Use mothballs. Sprinkle coffee grounds or pepper.

Brent Staples at Slate wrote about his fight with squirrels a few years ago and ran through a laundry list of non-working solutions, at least for him:

+ Galvanized mesh and canvas.
+ Red pepper.
+ Fox urine and mountain lion urine. (Like pretty much everything else, you can get this off the Interwebs.)
+ Importing a family of hawks. Yeah, you read that right.

Hawk importing aside, I'd recommend trying garden guards such as netting or mesh around your plants. A good sprinkling of red pepper probably wouldn't hurt either -- hot pepper plants are known to be natural pesticides themselves.

Photo credit: Baltimore Sun staff