Pest-Control

Garden pests are the single most frustrating part of growing anything. You water, weed, and wait for weeks, then come out one morning to find your tomato plants stripped bare or your lettuce riddled with holes. The key is matching the right control method to the specific pest instead of spraying everything with whatever is on sale. I tested eight pest control products across a full growing season to sort out what works from what is basically expensive water in a bottle. ...

Mosquitoes are the main reason people cut evenings short in the summer. One person gets bitten, everyone starts slapping their ankles, and the whole patio session moves inside. Bug spray works but nobody wants to shower in DEET before sitting on their own deck. Mosquito traps and bug zappers offer a different approach: attract and kill the mosquitoes in your yard so they stop bothering you. Some work well. Some are expensive noise makers that mostly kill moths. We tested 6 devices across different technologies — propane traps, UV zappers, CO2-baited traps, and portable units — to find the ones that actually reduce mosquito populations in a typical backyard. ...

A good garden sprayer is one of those tools you don’t appreciate until you’re pumping a cheap one every thirty seconds while trying to hit aphids on the underside of a tomato leaf. The right sprayer makes quick work of fertilizing, weed control, pest management — even cleaning gutters and applying sealants. The wrong one leaves you with a sore arm and patchy coverage. I tested 7 sprayers — from a $15 handheld pump to a $150 battery-powered backpack — and learned one thing quickly: you don’t realize how bad a cheap sprayer is until you use a decent one. ...