Foil Garden Pests

You may think aluminum foil is just a handy kitchen product. But it's actually one of the best outdoor tools against pesky pests, as well! Here’s how to put it to work:

Keep out cats. Fill empty 2-liter bottles halfway with water. Add a tiny bit of bleach to prevent algae from growing, and drop 3 long strips of foil into each one. Set the bottles around any areas of your yard you want to protect from unwanted visitors.
Repel birds, rabbits, and raccoons with a flashing fence. Pound stakes into the soil at 3- to 4-foot intervals all around your garden, and run twine between them. Cut aluminum foil into strips that are about 1 inch wide and about 5 inches long, and tape the strips to the twine, spaced out from each other by a foot or so.
Fend off cutworms, which commonly attack young plants, by wrapping foil loosely around the stems of any delicate seedlings. The foil should extend about 2 inches below the ground and 3 inches above. When the stems of your plants reach about ½ inch in diameter and are too thick for cutworms to damage, remove the foil.
Deter flying insects by placing several pieces of aluminum foil on the soil around any plants you want to protect. The reflecting light will confuse the bugs so that they can’t land. Just make sure to poke a few holes in the foil so that water can still reach your plants’ roots.
Stop snails and slugs. These troublemakers will snack on just about any kind of plant under the sun! To keep 'em from munching, simply wrap the base of each plant that you want to protect in a 1-inch piece (or larger, if you’d like) of foil. They'll keep right on movin'.

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