I always love quick and easy gardening tips, particularly when they come from great friends. Take, for example, my great friend Sue Coy. She and her family live in northern Durham County, and her garden is overly natural and shady and just beautiful. Filled with ferns, hosta, columbine, lilies, foxglove, azaleas, dogwoods, deciduous trees and hardwoods, and pines, it's a classic North Carolina garden.

The Coys have also always had a really successful and sustainable vegetable garden. They're the first true naturalists I've known. Their garden is chock full of asparagus, tomatoes, herbs, and the unusual pairing of tart, delicious cherries. But given the bumper crop of veggies they have each year and the abundance of wildlife in their back yard, it's long been a wonder how the two coexist. 

It's simple: Milorganite. 

"I've tried dried blood," she said, "and mixing eggs and water, which you leave in a bowl out in the sun. And I don't like Deer-Off because I feel like that's nothing but chemicals I don't want to use."

"But the Milorganite is environmentally friendly, and it's a slight fertilizer ... although I don't depend on it for that purpose. I apply a very little bit after a heavy rain and about once a week. But, really, it's whatever works best for you."

Sue buys her Milorganite at Lowe's Home Improvement for about $12 or $13 a bag, and one bag lasts her about a year.

• Got any other tips to keep your garden critter-free?