I have a HK compact .45 and an understanding neighbor in Internal Affairs to bail me out. (just kidding)

Pepper spray solves the problem with everything except the bluejays, bluejays love capcasin (however it's spelled) that makes the "hot" in peppers and the suet cakes I buy for the bluejays specifically is loaded with the stuff to keep other "junk" birds from attacking it.

But then again, for birds, having a bird feed has been my cheap remedy. So far it's managed to keep them from eating my seedlings, we'll see how it does for fruits.

A good outside dog is the answer to most of your problems.I have read countless posts where people mention anything from planting marigolds to baiting a medieval catapult to rid someone of the deer.I counted 9 from my yard last week.You could always buy a red rider bb gun,and pay one of the little boys in your neighborhood to take the birds out-but then again,he might shoot his eye out...like ralphie was always told. :)

i tried the cages that were in mels book but they didn't work. in my case it was raccoons that climbed on top and collapsed the cage. i finally built a fixed frame cage that seems to keep them out (so far) but the berries and melons aren't ripe so the jury is still out. they have worked on the deer so far though. i've live trapped and relocated more coons than i can count, but that's a tedious and time consuming job. so far, a 4 foot fence around each bed seems to keep deer out. it appears that they don't want to jump into a 4 foot wide bed over that fence, even though they could. i don't fence things like garlic and onions. at best, it's a constant war with the animals. i don't know what you do with the squirrels who seem to love tomatoes.