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'.

For more critter-busting quick-tricks, check out our bestselling book, Critter Control & Pest Prevention. You can even try it out FREE for a full 21 days with our Free Preview!

An Afternoon Snack for Your Yard

Your kitchen is full of green thumb magic that’s just waiting to be unleashed! For starters, check out these fast food fixes that will help get your garden in tip-top shape: 

Apple juice. If your lawn is looking spotty or lighter in color, pay attention—it’s begging for food! So give it a hearty meal of this down-home fertilizer, then stand back and watch it grow: In a large bucket, mix 1 can of beer, 1 can of cola (not diet), 1 cup of apple juice, 1 cup of lemon-scented dishwashing liquid, 1 cup of ammonia, and 1 cup of all-purpose plant food (15-30-15 is good). Pour 1 quart of the mix into a 20 gallon hose-end sprayer, and apply it to everything in your yard to the point of runoff. Repeat every three weeks during the growing season, and you’ll see fantastic results! 

Muffin cups. After you’ve used paper muffin cups for their intended purpose of baking, you can still put them to work in your garden. Just toss ‘em into the compost bin or bury them in the soil, muffin crumbs and all. In no time, they will decompose into plant-pleasing snacks.

Peanut butter. You’ll love making these treats—and your fine-feathered friends will love eating them! Simply mix peanut butter with enough whole-wheat flour to form a dough. Shape the dough into baseball-sized mounds, and freeze them. When you're ready to hang one in the yard, cut a section from a mesh produce bag, and wrap it around the frozen sphere. Tie the bag closed, and hang it from a sturdy tree branch. You'll have a blast watching the birds flock to your yard!

For more fun tips and tricks using common kitchen products, check out our bestselling book, Supermarket Super Gardens. You can even try it out for a full 21 days with our Free Preview!

Songbird Season

Migrating songbirds are a big thrill in the spring, and a birdbath that’s brimming with water is one of the best ways to entice them to visit—especially if you add the sound of flowing water to it with a dripper!

You can buy a dripper, or drip tube, at a bird-supply store for about $35, or you can easily make your own for free using an empty plastic juice jug. Here’s how:

1. Thoroughly clean the jug, then using a straight pin, poke a pinhole in the bottom.
2. Poke another tiny hole near the top for airflow.
3. Fill the jug with water and replace the lid.
4. Use fishing line or small-gauge wire to suspend the jug from a sturdy branch above your birdbath. Now you’ve got everything birds need to sip, splash, and stay awhile!

For more terrific tips and tricks to help you treat your fine-feathered friends, check out our bestselling book, Backyard Birdscaping Bonanza. You can even try it out absolutely FREE for 21 days with our Free Preview!

Flocking in a Winter Wonderland

Colorful berries on trees and shrubs are known for attracting winter birds. But that’s not all that our feathered friends love to flock to! Here’s how to turn your backyard into a winter wonderland—that’s literally for the birds:

Create a Feeding Station. Simply drill 1-inch holes into a thick branch, and hang it from a tree. Fill the holes with suet (heating it first to make it easier to pack), and you’re good to go. Just make sure to keep refill the suet every few days.

Fill a Winter Birdbath. A supply of fresh water for drinking and bathing is a must all year round, but it’s especially important in winter! Heat some water to lukewarm and pour it into your birdbath every morning. The birds will love their luxurious winter hot tub!

Whip up a fruity treat. Combine 4 parts black oil sunflower seeds, 1 part cracked corn, 1 part chopped dates, and 1 part chopped dried cherries, and stir to mix thoroughly. Serve it in an unroofed tray feeder so the birds can spot the sweet stuff as they’re flying by.

For even more terrific tips, tricks, and treats that’ll attract beautiful birds to your backyard, just check out our bestselling book, Backyard Birdscaping Bonanza. You can even try it out FREE for 21 days with our Free Preview!

The Great Paper Plate

We all know that when you’re feeding a crowd at a big cookout or hosting a backyard birthday party for your kids, paper plates can save you a whole lot of cleanup time. But that’s not the only way this disposable, inexpensive, and super sturdy helper can come to your aid. Here are a few more handy hacks you can perform with a paper plate that'll make your life easier, cleaner, and less stressful...

In the Garden

• Say “adios” to ants. Whether the tiny rascals are traipsing into your house or making mischief at your barbecue, serve up ultra-safe ant bait on a paper plate. When the bait’s all gone, toss the plate into the compost bin, or bury it in the garden. You’ll solve your pest problem and improve your soil at the same time.
• Make sticky traps for flying bugs. Poke a hole near the edge of the plate, and thread a piece of wire through it. Coat the paper surface with corn syrup or petroleum jelly, and hang the trap on or next to a plagued plant. Every few days, remove the bug-covered plate and replace it with a fresh one.
• Make a quickie bird feeder. Use thumbtacks to attach heavy-duty paper plates to your wooden porch railing or other sheltered spot, and scatter a handful of black oil sunflower seeds in each one.

Around the House

• Catch paint drips. Before you start painting a ceiling, poke a hole in a paper plate and push your brush handle through. Then you’ll be sure that the paint will dribble onto the plate and not on your head.
• Cushion your china. When ceramic plates are stacked on a shelf, the bottom of one can scratch the surface of the plate below. To keep that from happening, put paper plates between them.
• Stop the splatter. Before you whip up your favorite goodies with your electric mixer, poke the straight end of the whisks through a paper plate (face down), and attach them to your mixer as usual. The plate will catch all the mess, so cleanup will be a cinch!

For more trash-to-treasure tips, garden growin’ magic, and critter controls, check out our bestselling book, Supermarket Super Gardens. You can even try it out FREE for 21 days!

Help—or Trouble—on the Wing

Most birds gobble up so many destructive insects during the growing season that they’re worth their weight in hundred-dollar bills. And besides eating up the bugs that munch on your veggies, they’ll polish off the ones that like to bother you and your four-footed family members. On the other hand, some birds can make real nuisances of themselves, especially at spring planting time.

So how do you tell the varmints from the volunteers? It’s simple: Just take a close look. If a bird has spindly legs and a short, thick, cone-shaped beak, it’s a seed eater — and you want it to steer clear of your veggie patch, at least until your plants are well past the seedling stage. But if you see a bird with either a thin and pointy or short, wide, and gaping type of beak, you’ve found a friend.

A bird with a thin and pointy beak eats insects, and plenty of them. It’ll poke that beak into all those tiny places where bugs hide, and gobble them up from the ground, too. Wrens, warblers, kingbirds, phoebes, and all kinds of flycatchers fit this bill.

On the other hand, a bird with a short, wide, and gaping beak grabs food on the fly. Swifts, swallows, nighthawks, purple martins, and whippoorwills all snatch pesky pests as they’re streaking through the air.

When birds are helping themselves to your seeds or vegetables, the only guaranteed way to protect your crops is to cover the plants with nets or floating row covers. Simply surrounding your garden with things that flash or whip around in the wind will also keep down some of the damage. Just remember to use a combination of objects, not just one, and change them every so often so the birds don’t get used to thinking of them as part of the scenery. Any of these items will do the trick:

• Aluminum pie tins
• Helium-filled Mylar™ balloons
• Pinwheels
• Small mirrors
• Strips of Mylar
• Whirligigs
• Windsocks

What Can a Little Birdie Do for You?

Sometimes, gardens are literally for the birds! You can plant your garden with individual flowers matched to specific types of birds, or you can let your garden grow wild, in which case you’ll attract all kinds of feathered friends. Why bother beckoning birds? It’s not only because winged wonders are pretty to look at (although that’s reason enough in my book); they also provide plenty of practical benefits, including these:

Control pests. Hummingbirds and many songbirds dine on destructive and disease-spreading insects, as well as insect eggs and larvae.

Increase your harvest. Fruit trees and bushes, as well as many vegetables, cannot produce crops unless their blossoms receive pollen from other flowers. Some plants are pollinated by the wind, but a great many others depend on birds and good-guy insects, like butterflies, to deliver their pollen supply.

Enrich your life. With a wildlife habitat in your yard (or even a bird feeder on your balcony), you’ll have a front-row seat to pursue such leisure activities as drawing, photography, and bird-watching.

Improve your health. Study after study has shown that spending time communing with animals improves people’s mental and physical health — and even increases their productivity at work.

Here are a few guidelines to welcoming your new wild friends:

1.   Don’t use pesticides. They’ll kill off the insects that are a big part of your guest’s food supply.

2.   Diversify your portfolio. The more kinds of trees, shrubs, flowers, herbs, and even vegetables and fruits you plant, the more kinds of birds and other beneficial wildlife you’ll attract to your yard.

3.   Go native. The best way to issue an invitation to wildlife — bar none — is to plant species that are native to your little corner of the world. How come? Because they attract the kinds of wildlife that are also native to your area.