Incidentally, if you find all of this off-putting (especially the idea of using chemical lawn fertilizers), maybe you’d like to dispense with the lawn (at least on some portions of your property) altogether and start a garden from scratch. If so, the first step would be to get rid of your grass in the easiest way possible. If what you care most about is saving money, go manual and use a simple hand file. Dremel tool owners can buy an attachment kit to make the job easier: It offers a guide to help you file at just the right angle. But that’s no solution if you have a vegetable garden. In this case, you will have to take measures such as fencing the critters out or repelling them. To achieve this, plant deer-resistant plants. If the deer don’t come to eat, there’s that much less chance of your being bitten by a deer tick. Planting deer-resistant plants also saves you money, lest your garden become deer-food. An example is the Carol Mackie Daphne (Daphne x burkwoodii ‘Carol Mackie’).
