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Step 1
Remember that woodchucks have poor eyesight but very good senses of smell and taste--that's how they know that many things are good to eat. Smells that signal good to eat--tomatoes, even before they look ripe to you, leafy greens like lettuce, mild and sweet shoots and leaves (beans, beets, cucumbers, squash) and assorted flowers (lilies and dahlias are special favorites).
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Step 2
Surround your woodchuck-favorites with flowers whose strong smell or taste turns woodchucks away. Stock the perimeter of your garden with daffodils followed by marigolds. Daffodil bulbs have a taste woodchucks don't like (something important to know when dealing with a digging animal), and the scent of marigolds both repels woodchucks and disguises the scent of more attractive plants.
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Step 3
Choose woodchuck-repelling vegetables to surround the ones woodchucks love. Strong-flavored greens, like mustard or turnip, and aromatics such as onions and garlic work the way marigolds do, producing a scent woodchucks do not like and disguising the odors of more attractive vegetables.
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Step 4
Edge your garden with low shrubbery that repels nearly everything. Barberry has nasty thorns and tenacious, unpleasant roots, making a barrier that is difficult to go over, through, or even under. Gopher spurge has bad-tasting roots.
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Step 5
Remove plants that make woodchuck access easy. Pull or mow tall grass and weeds regularly. Keep as wide a perimeter of open ground around your garden as possible. Like all thieves, woodchucks don't like exposure!
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Step 6
Prepare to persist. Woodchucks are stubborn and apparently chronically hungry. Like many animals living in close proximity with people, they adapt and adjust, so you may have to take extra fencing, planting and other deterrent steps as the season progresses.
