Winning tip: Keep your hose from harming your delicate plants

I find this works perfectly to prevent any injury or damage to my delicate plants when hauling hoses around the garden. I install two 2-foot rebar spikes where my hose always tends to rub a precious plant, and slide the hose between the two. To prevent human injury from the sharp rebar point on top, I cover it with a cap from the hardware store. This keeps the hose from harming my plants and works much better for me than the store-bought kind; with those, I find that the hose is prone to jumping out of the track.

—Pam Morgan, Monroe, North Carolina

Thwarting annual-munching rabbits

Rabbits are quick to educate us about their food preferences. This spring, repellents weren’t doing the trick,
and a poultry-fencing consideration (definitely not aesthetically pleasing) was the only thing between my delectable annuals and serious devastation. After a particularly destructive overnight bunny raid, I was putting groceries away and looked at the open-mesh produce bags (onions, potatoes, citrus, etc.) in a new light. Could they be useful in rabbit combat? I cut 18-inch lengths of bamboo stakes, made tripods around susceptible new plants (zinnias, cosmos, globe amaranths, etc.), and sleeved the mesh over the top and down to the ground. After several weeks the ravaged annuals recovered enough to be safe and for me to unsleeve, drench with repellent, and actually enjoy.

I’m the first to admit that these mesh tents aren’t pretty, but I prefer them to having chicken-wire corrals around entire beds (including plants that don’t need protection). And I’m reusing, recycling, and repurposing. (The poor zinnia in the photo was victimized before I dreamed up the sleeve trick.)

—Tony Fulmer, Arlington Heights, Illinois

Squish those leaves

My grandmother used to joke that you got half a pound of holes when you bought a pound of Swiss cheese. Bags of leaves are something like that—full, but with lots of empty space because the leaves just won’t compact enough. I found a solution by using a large empty nursery pot (#10 or so) and a watering can. Put a bunch of leaves in the bag, water lightly on top, and squish them with the bottom of the nursery pot. Repeat until the bag is full, at which point you’ll have filled it with twice as many leaves as you would have otherwise.

—Tatiana Holway, Providence, Rhode Island

Contain your mint

I do all of my vegetable gardening in containers and raised beds. When the bottom corroded out of an old galvanized tub this year, I buried the remainder in a new herb bed. That should help keep my mint in check!

—Jane School, DeKalb, Illinois

From groceries to garden supplies

I repurposed a shopping cart into a handy garden cart. Standard paper leaf bags fit perfectly in the main compartment, and the rear basket holds extra bags and small gar-den tools. The unit folds flat for storage. The cart is easily pulled from the rear, and the wheels will roll over most obstacles.

—Tom Scott, Columbus, Ohio

Photos: courtesy of the contributors

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