I'm always looking for the most recent techniques to help protect our plants from deer and other critters. Deer browsing our shrubs, vegetables, and flowers is a constant source of angst for home owners. Fencing deer out of your yard is often not practical for a suburban homeowner, so repellent sprays are really the next best option.

Recent research at the Connecticut Agricultural Research Station, reported by Connecticut Gardener magazine, highlights the best repellents. Essential oil based repellents, containing oils such as mint, thyme or pepper, often evaporate quickly. Odor based sprays, such as those containing rotten eggs or blood meal, are more effective, but eventually wash off plants after about 5 weeks. In their research, the best deer repellent sprays were fat based. Fat based sprays don't smell bad to humans, don't need reapplying after rains and gave plants months of protection.

Fat-based repellent sprays were discovered in Austria when farmers noticed that deer avoided plants that had raw sheep’s wool hanging on them. Raw sheep's wool has lanolin-based fats that repel deer. Lanolin is a byproduct of wool processing and is safe for people, wildlife and the environment. While their research showed three months of protection from lanolin-based sprays, these commercial products, such as Trico, are very expensive.

A less expensive home remedy alternative that proved as effective as lanolin-based sprays is milk fat. Mixing Half & Half with equal parts water in a sprayer worked as well as the lanolin sprays.

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The warm, wet spring and now summery weather has encouraged our summer squash and zucchini to thrive. But we're not the only ones enjoying these plants. Squash bugs are here and laying eggs on the undersides of summer squash, winter squash, and melon plants. You may not see much damage yet from the squash bugs, but if allowed to thrive, your squash patch will be a mess come August.

Squash bugs are brown or grey colored with a shield shape on their back. They emerge in spring after overwintering under dead leaves, rocks, wood, and other garden debris and start laying copper colored eggs in organized clusters on the leaf undersides. The eggs hatch into miniature squash bug babies that continue to feed on leaves and flowers. The population usually explodes come August when it's too late to really control them.

So, let’s do a little prevention now. Companion planting seems to help. Research from Iowa State University showed that interplanting nasturtiums among your squash deterred egg laying. The nasturtiums emit a fragrance that masks the squash so the squash bugs can't find the squash plants. Grow the trialing type of nasturtiums to have a good mass of plants. You can also check the undersides of the leaves every other day for egg clusters and squish them. You can also cut them out with a scissors if squishing isn't your thing. Finding and squishing the adults is good also.

The organic spray, Spinosad, can be used to kill the adults and young. Spray when the squash aren't flowering and in the evening to prevent harm to pollinating insects.

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We're potentially going to have an abundance of tree fruits this summer. With the mild winter and spring and the right about of sun and moisture, our cherries, plums, pears, apples and peaches have set lots of fruit. While I'm excited about the potential fruit glut, I also know that trees might be too enthusiastic. Too many fruits can lead to the branches breaking from the weight and the fruits being small and not as flavorful. That's why I'm thinning some fruits from my trees.

Thinning is removing some young fruits so the remaining ones thrive. Nature does a good job by doing something called the June drop. That's when trees naturally drop some of their excess fruit on their own. However, you still may need to hand thin fruits now.

Some fruit trees are okay with a big crop. Mature cherries can handle the load. But plums, peaches, apricots, apples, pears and all young trees can stand a little help.

Thin plums to 4- to 6- inches apart. Peaches, apricots and nectarines should be thinned to 8 inches apart. Apples and pears set fruits in clusters so remove all but one of the fruit in the cluster and make sure the clusters are at least 6 inches apart. For dwarf trees or young trees be more aggressive. We have a few 3 year old peach trees that are loaded with fruit. I may leave 6 or 8 peaches on each tree since they're too young to support the weight of all those fruits. The sooner you thin the better so the remaining fruits will plump up nicely.

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