From our surveys we know that MOTHER EARTH NEWS readers use mostly organic methods, but most of us have encountered some problems where organic options we’ve tried have not worked and we’ve been tempted to resort to heavy-duty chemical pesticides. If you have a pest problem you haven’t been able to solve, post a comment below outlining what organic remedies did not work for you, and maybe other readers will be able to suggest additional organic options to try.

If you’re tired of old, flimsy tomato cages, follow this step-by-step guide and make your own sturdy, wooden alternative. It can be folded up for ease of storage and is strong enough, by design, to withstand rough winds better than the wire variety. With minimal materials, all of which are easy to find, all you really need is motivation.

Read Woody’s Folding Tomato Cages for the full guide.

Sometimes it can be quite difficult to locate a company that sells the particular variety of beans you've been wanting to grow or the odd garden tool you remember you used to love so much. Well, we can help. We have developed two customized search engines that can make your life a little easier.

The Seed and Plant Finder 

Search the online catalogs of more than 500 mail-order seed companies. Just type in the variety you're looking for, and you'll get a list of links to the companies offering it.

Organic Pest Control and Garden Products Finder 

Search the Web sites of about 30 mail-order companies that carry the best selections of organic insecticides, tools and other products.

1. Always rake with the wind, and rake downhill whenever possible.

2. Share the wealth with your lawn. When the first leaves alight on a still-green lawn, mulch-mow to return the leaves and grass clippings to the soil. In addition to helping your lawn, it's easier to rake turf areas that have been smoothed over by a good mowing.

3. Use your mower to shred leaves to use as mulch or in compost. Set aside whole leaves in a separate pile, and deal with them later when you have more time.

4. Mix leaf species. Leaf-eating microorganisms that get started on thin maple or dogwood leaves will move on to thicker oak leaves as the mixture decomposes.

5. Don’t pick up leaves unless you must. Instead, collect leaves in a tarp or an old sheet, pick up the corners, and carry or drag the bundle to your piles.

6. Match your rake to your leaves, and to your body. At stores, try rakes on for size before you buy. Rakes with metal tines last longer than plastic ones, but plastic tines may be lighter.

7. Minimize how far you move your leaves. Rake them directly onto nearby beds that won’t be worked until spring. Use shredded leaves as mulch beneath foundation shrubs. Maintain leaf piles in different parts of your yard to reduce how far you must drag or carry tarps full of leaves.

8. Once you have your leaves in piles, stomp through them to keep the leaves from blowing away. If you are using a pen or other enclosure, leave it open on one side until you’re through collecting leaves. That way, you can rake or dump right into the pile without lifting your loads over the sides of the bin, and your pile will be accessible for walk-in stomping.

9. Wear gloves to prevent blisters. Cloth gloves are comfy, but any glove that protects your skin from rubbing on the rake handle will suffice.

10. Wear a dust mask when shredding leaves with your mower, especially if you have allergies or are easily irritated by dust.

11. Watch the noise. When you’re not in the mood to mess with your mower, blower, or other noisemaker, give in to the quiet. Rake. 

12. Work a little at a time, and stop when you’ve had enough. Leaf season will last for several weeks, so you have plenty of time to let yourself enjoy the work.

Do you have other tips to help fellow Mother Earth readers this leaf season? Please post them in the Comments section below.

A few weeks ago, Mother Earth's intrepid editor-in-chief, Cheryl Long, told me about a study from Kansas State University in which good quality organic lettuce was successfully grown in high tunnels in July and August with the use of 40 percent shade. That intriguing tidbit coincided with visits to two local organic farms — Five Penny and Full Circle — that use high tunnels. It's hot in those things! Surely if lettuce would grow in a high tunnel in Kansas in August, I could work a similar wonder in my Virginia garden. 

I began by starting seeds indoors, because lettuce germinates poorly (if at all) in hot soil. After the little plants gradually became accustomed to strong sun, I set them out under a shade cover made from a double thickness of black nylon net (75 cents at the fabric store) attached to wire hoops with clothespins. The cover provides about 30 percent shade, and the lettuce is doing great!

On very hot, sunny days, I add a lightweight piece of cotton sheeting to block even more sun, and the lettuce doesn't mind one bit. In Hawaii, summer lettuce is routinely grown under 35 percent to 50 percent shade.

How does it taste? The Kansas State study included customer surveys, and there were no complaints about the flavor. As for my experiment, I'm already calling it a success because I have garden-fresh lettuce for one of the season's most perfect foods — tomato sandwiches.

Following our March story on row covers, several readers asked about the biggest weakness of row covers as a pest protection method, which is this: When the covers are removed to admit pollinators, pests like cucumber beetles and squash vine borers have free access to the plants.

Maybe there’s a better way. After reading about an ongoing study in Pennsylvania in which reared bumblebees are being used as pollinators for squash being grown beneath row covers, I decided to try a similar strategy. When a planting of ‘Boston Pickler’ cucumbers (grown under cover to exclude cucumber beetles) began blooming heavily, I went out in the cool of the morning, caught a bumblebee in a jar, and released it beneath the row cover.

The bee disappeared for a day, but the next day there he was, working away at the cucumber blossoms. That evening, I opened the cover and let him go. He had earned his freedom.

Four days later I was picking cucumbers, so I repeated the experiment with another bumbler and a pair of honeybees. I soon learned that when free-foraging bees are taken captive on a warm, sunny day, they lose all interest in blossoms and spend their energy fighting the row cover instead; there are stories of dead bees littering the ground when healthy hives are placed inside greenhouses. Adding a shade cover (a lightweight cloth spread over the row cover) goes a long way toward helping pollinators focus on the job at hand. I’ve also observed that bumblebees adapt much better to temporary detainment than honeybees. 

If you decide to try this technique, let us know how it goes! Please post a comment below.

The earliest fruits from these ‘Boston Pickler’ cucumbers were pollinated by bees released beneath a floating row cover:

Related reading:

* Using row covers to manage cucumber family pests is covered in recent articles on cucumbers, cantaloupes and winter squash.

* Learn more about different kinds of bees in Protect Your Pollinators.

Photo by  Barbara Pleasant  

 
Do you have a tip you’d like to share with the Mother Earth News audience? Write it up, send it in, and you could win a free deluxe garden trowel! Just e-mail your tip to letters@MotherEarthNews.com with the subject line "Trowels for Tips" (and please include your mailing address).

If we publish your gardening tip here, we’ll send you this lightweight, ergonomically designed Natural Radius Grip (NRG) garden trowel. Its innovative design allows you to use maximum power with minimum strain on your muscles. Learn more about the trowel here.