I have about an acre of land with a lot of mature oak and hickory trees. They drop a lot of leaves each fall. I got the cyclone rake about 11-years ago, and it is just amazing.  In one full day I can clean the entire property of leaves and be ready for winter. I'll fill it 40 or so times throughout the day and emptying is reasonable. I make a leaf pile in a back area of the property for compost.

The 5-HP engine pulls the leaves from the mower discharge and grinds them further into small bits. One time using the attachment hose I sucked up a small block of wood with no damage to the impeller. However, there was a minor crack in the housing which I was able to patch with a short bolt and a couple of fender washers. Hickory nuts, sticks, pine cones and leaves get sucked up without issue.

Before it was several days of hard labor hauling load after load in a garden wagon, the cyclone rake was worth every penny.

I decided to try my hand at gardening again after last having a vegetable garden in college 35 years ago (which I remembered involving a lot of work). After doing some research online I found Mel Bartholomew's squarefoot garden method appealed to my inner geekdom. Bartholomew's method relies on building and gardening in four-foot by four-foot plots/boxes. He then provides details on how to plan the optimal mixture of soil, fertilizer, and supplements to match whatever you want to grow in them. After using the method for three years I am a sold.

The method assumes you know nothing, does not require you to be very handy, is inexpensive, takes up a minimal amount of space and water, is very practical and detailed, can easily be entirely organic, requires minimal weeding, and, best of all, yields lots of fresh veggies. What more could you ask for? The other books I looked at required tilling, fertilizing and weeding rows or did not focus on the basics.

I discovered the compost crank about three years ago when I switched from the previously reviewed compost tumbler to compost bins. For those who don't know, unless you are willing to wait years for finished compost, you need to get oxygen and moisture to the microbes that rot or break down the plant materials. And so you have to aerate the pile of materials by turning it.

I had used devices, purchased from the big box stores, that have wings on the end of a metal shaft with a handle. The theory is that you plunge the metal shaft into the pile and the wings open up as you pull outward allowing you to lift the organic material. The problem with that is that it turns out to be a back-breaking aerobic workout.

Instead, the compost crank is like a great big version of an old fashion hand drill. You just crank or drill the end of the shaft (the end looks like a metal pig's tail) and then lift or pull upward which comparatively is exponentially easier than all of the other methods I have tried. How did it change my life? Well I'm fifty-eight and it probably saved me from a coronary attack!

-- Eugene Pummill

I've used the Compost Crank for about 1 1/2 years. This lightweight, over-sized corkscrew allows you to get deep down to the bottom of your compost where no garden fork or spade could ever penetrate and turn it with ease. I was an "old school" fork-user for many years but this has changed my composting experience for ever. The Compost Crank is also easy on the back, as well as the eye.

-- Andy Sheen-Turner

I love to garden, but I have a hard time figuring out whether a particular spot is ideal for a particular plant. I recently discovered the EasyBloom, a tool that when staked into the ground tracks data for sunlight, humidity, soil drainage, temperature, and, for an added monthly fee, soil fertility.

By tracking these variables the tool is capable of identifying whether an environment is suitable for a particular species of plant. It can be used to analyze why a plant is not doing well, and even alert you when the plant needs water. It functions indoors and outdoors. I have used it multiple times and it has saved me time and money, since I now know what to plant where.

The EasyBloom connects to the computer via USB and includes software to analyze the data that it produces.

As an avid gardener I do a lot of hand watering. Nozzles, as a whole, are awful. The levers are hard to hold down, they leak terribly, that don't last long, and the spray patterns are useless.

Then I got a Bon-Aire nozzle (I didn't buy it, the company sent it to me.) I was like, oh sure, another nozzle. Rather use my thumb, thank you.

I'm pretty sure the first time I used it I was hooked, and I've had it for 3 years. It's fashioned like a fire hose nozzle, and that's the beauty. Easy to hold, spray patterns are perfect, turns on and off in either direction, and works smooth as glass.

Love it.

I have nothing to do with the company, just think this nozzle is outstanding all around. Full disclosure: I'm a staff home & garden writer at the Orange County Register.

We've recently planted trees in the midst of a dry-spell and have struggled to keep them watered. We have since discovered the Tree Gator. It is a bladder filled with water that wraps around the tree. As the water slowly leaks out it keeps the tree watered for as long as a week.

We use the 15-gallon Treegator Jr for the smallest of newly planted trees. They also make a 20-gallon version for larger trees. Beats dragging hoses from tree to tree.

The Effort-Less birdfeeder is a gravity-fed dispenser that is easy to fill and clean, holds a lot of seed, provides a second lower tray for spillage for birds that typically feed on the ground. It is elegant, durable, and allows large numbers of birds to feed peacefully for long periods of time. It has an effective squirrel guard and is free-standing on a hefty base.

The quality and design of this simple birdfeeder stand out. The design is a total rethink of many traditional styles that obviates all of the problems with other feeders. The quality is in the myriad thoughtful details of materials, construction and presentation that make it perform perfectly.

All of the parts fit together exquisitely when one follows the extremely clear instructions. Assembly was actually fun and without stress.

We have numerous feeders and fountains for the birds. After introducing the Effort-Less, we have seen a sudden influx of numerous kinds of rare birds, sometimes in large flocks. Not sure if this is coincidence or an overlapping of factors. Nonetheless, the birds are surely making good use of the feeder. We have owned this from spring to the beginning of autumn and it has made birdwatching a great pleasure in our lives.

I like this new telescoping tree pruner from Fiskars. It is much better than the old tree pruner I used to have that was just a long wood stick with a pulling string attached to the blade. Not only was it heavy, but the string easily tangled. The new one from Fiskars is made with aluminum and is much lighter. The best feature is the pulling mechanism built into the handle. It is convenient, easy to use, and doesn't tangle. It also comes with an attachable saw for branches that are too large for the pruner, but I have yet to try that out.

I use the tree pruner every summer to keep the branches from growing too close to the power lines in my garden in order to prevent fires.

After trying several types of gardening on my homestead in the rainy Pacific Northwest (where my favored "no-till" sheetmulching seems to fail miserably), I've settled on the lightly-cultivated approach of Steve Solomon (soilandhealth.org). The old-fashioned and well-sharpened garden hoe is the workhorse of this technique.

After going to every garden center and hardware store around, and going through a few cheaper units with bad handles and unsharpenable blades, I decided to spend what it takes to get a good one. Imagine my pleasant surprise when the finest hoes I could find online were the same price OR CHEAPER than the flimsy, cheaply made Mexican and Chinese imported units.

Rogue Hoes are all about $25 and come in a myriad of sizes and blade shapes. I use the 65g for general soil-mixing-and-moving and weed slicing and the 60S "stealth bomber" to remove weeds from tight spots. The blade takes a very keen edge with a little filing and the handles should last a very long time with occasional oiling and the most basic of care: keep them out of the rain and hang them with the blade and handle off the ground.

There exist a seemingly endless variety of hummingbird feeder designs, and over the years we've tried many only to encounter a variety of annoying shortcomings. However, we have finally discovered the perfect feeder: the Aspects HummZinger Hummingbird Feeder. We have been using 4 of these feeders for about 5 years, and are completely satisfied with their design.

Where we live, mold growing inside a hummingbird feeder is a constant problem. Most feeders are extremely difficult to clean due to their vacuum feeding system that requires a narrow-necked food reservoir. The HummZinger feeder solves this problem by using a simple bowl reservoir, not a gravity feed. Thus, when you pop off the top you have a completely open container that couldn't be easier to clean. Another problem is that ants would occasionally find one of our feeders. Once this happens the only solution is to move the feeder and hope they don't find it in the new location, or add an ant trap, which are hard to find. The HummZinger feeder solves this problem by having an integrated ant trap. Just fill it with water, or let rain do it, and you'll be ant free. A final problem we've experienced with some feeders is that rain water can easily run into the feeding holes, diluting the solution to the point where it no longer attracts the hummingbirds. The HummZinger feeders address this problem by having a raised flower design around each feeding port that diverts much of the rain water. While this isn't a complete solution, this feature definitely reduces the problem.

The feeders come in 8, 12, and 16 oz sizes, with 3, 4, and 6 feeding ports respectively. The feeders are constructed of an "unbreakable" polycarbonate and come with a lifetime guarantee. We use multiple feeders in the "Mini" 8 oz. size because we find that the eastern Ruby Throated hummingbirds don't "play well with others", and too many ports on a single feeder lead to excessive squabbling. However, in the western US, where I have seen swarms of hummers happily sharing a feeder, the 16 oz model may be a better choice.

The only potential fault I can see with these feeders is that even the 16 oz model has much less capacity than many gravity-feed brands, which means that they must be refilled more often. We don't find this a problem because by the time one of our feeders is empty it is also in need of a cleaning to avoid mold.

I bought this weed puller earlier this spring after watching a couple of neighbors use different models of dandelion pullers. One brand ripped out a fist full of dirt, and you had to clear it by hand. When I saw my neighbors 12-year-old kid working the Weed Hound, and using the gun-like hammer action to shoot the much smaller dirt/weed plug into a garbage bucket 10 feet away, I thought we might have a winner.

Once you perfect the technique it gets the entire dandelion taproot about 40% of the time - but you can literally use it for hours without ever having to bend over. My tips for operating it: when you pull up, twist the unit slightly, and keep upward pressure on the knob as well as the pull handle. Wear a glove on your "shooting" hand, so your palm doesn't get sore when you push the knob and clear the plug of dirt out of the claw. I have found that it works best when soil is moist, especially after or during a light rain.

At less than $20 - it's about half the price of competing products. It is all metal and seems like it will last. I've bought and used the previously recommended Grandpa's Weed Puller - and this one is 100X better than that. Be ready to share it with your neighbors...this thing will actually draw a small crowd. I even Tom-Sawyered my 7-year-old into weeding his grandma's lawn as a Mother's Day present.

This broadfork is what I use anytime I have a garden bed to prepare and want to loosen up the soil and add amendments before planting. Tillers are unwieldy, destroy soil structure and vital organisms and are generally unsuitable for raised beds. A standard pitch fork is fine but an ergonomic nightmare if you have a large area to work. The best solution I have found is the broadfork. It uses your body weight and two long handles for leverage and loosens a large swath.

I bought the Johnny's 520 Broadfork from Johnny's Seeds as it was large enough for my needs, although there are various sizes available. I use it regularly and the amount of soil it can turn with a modicum of effort is remarkable. I started using it this year and think that any serious vegetable gardener looking to avoid the roto-tiller would welcome this in the shed.

I've been using these for a dozen years to start seeds for annual flowers and a vegetable garden. They are superior to most methods when it comes to reducing transplant shock and simply make transplanting easier. Additionally, they allow me to save money on supplies at the expense of a little extra labor.

Soil block makers are hand-operated presses that make a compacted soil cube. You start seeds directly in the cube of compressed soil; no container is necessary. Since the cubes' sides are in contact with air, roots will stop growing when they reach the side of the block. Contrast that with seedlings grown in the typical retail greenhouse's flimsy plastic tray, in which the roots wrap around the space between the soil and plastic, becoming pot-bound.

When it comes time to transplant the cubes formed with soil block makers into the garden, just drop the block into the prepared hole. There's no prying a pot-bound seedling from a container; no accidentally damaging the root system. I've tried various biodegradable containers designed to go right into the garden soil, including peat pots, peat and coconut blocks, even small paper bags designed to hold potting soil and seedlings. None of them decompose as quickly as advertised; this results in slower root growth after transplanting. Plus, buying new containers each year is an added expense. I also tried a tray system that's sturdy, designed to be easy to water, has a better shape than greenhouse trays, and an integrated greenhouse cover. While it's the best tray system I've ever used, buying enough of these trays to start all my seeds would be several hundred dollars in up-front expenses, and they’re a pain to store when not in use. My block maker is less expensive and only takes up about the space of a hardback novel.

Block makers come in several sizes, designed to handle different sized seedlings, or to allow potting-on from one size to the next. I've found the two-inch size covers most of my home-gardener needs.

The only downside I've found is you must water the blocks frequently or they dry out. I put my blocks on disposable foil cookie baking sheets, placed on shelves. Some people put the blocks on capillary mats, which stay wet and wick water into the block bottoms, so you don't need to water as often. I've found that you still need to mist the blocks, and worse, plant roots can grow into the mat, causing the very root trauma you are trying to avoid. When it's time to transplant, I slide the foil sheet onto a piece of plywood and carry it out to the garden.

The block maker I have is the Mini 4, by Ladbrooke. You can also purchase them, as well as soil block mix, or find more soil recipes and instructions for making your own soil blockers at Pottingblocks.com. Great advice and instructions for homemade blockers are here.

This is a heavy-duty cast aluminum garden hose reel. It costs about twice as much as the plastic reel I replaced and is at least four times the quality and longevity. The materials used are thick cast aluminum, powder-coated, with real stainless steel fasteners and brass fittings. The fittings and bearings are replaceable and heavy duty. The term bulletproof comes to mind.

The reel is configurable as a parallel or perpendicular mount with either a right or left hand hose mount. The design is modular and well thought out. Even the included hex wrenches are well thought out and long enough to reach easily and are of high quality. As a mechanical designer myself, I am able to appreciate a nice robust design and execution.

Shovels get stuck turning thick compost piles. A garden fork, known also as a compost or spading fork, moves more freely through the debris, and is my favorite means of turning compost, a task that, with this tool, I enjoy. I’ve seen devices such as the Compost Crank, designed solely for aerating a pile of decomposing organic matter, but they’re apparently not up for much else.

I value my garden fork because it’s also the best tool I have for aerating soil without tilling it. It’s good for lifting and moving stuff around the garden, some digging and uprooting, too. I bought mine from Seeds of Change a few years ago, recommended by a friend who’s had one for many years. It has a hearty ash handle and a head of four pointy sharp carbon steel tines. There surely are other worthy versions of this essential garden tool. I’m more than happy with this one.

There are few chores I remember from my years growing up on my family’s Missouri farm more thankless, backbreaking, low paying and messier than picking up black walnuts. Our yards had numerous walnut trees, which every autumn produced as many walnuts as there were large whirring cicadas in their giant canopies. Picking them up, however, wasn't just done for the pocket change my brother and I earned as much as it was necessary to get them off the ground and out of the lawnmower's path. As walnuts lay in the grass their soft pulpy shells quickly turn mushy and black, oozing a dark staining juice that makes them unpleasant to handle.

Enter the most effective tool I've come across in a long time, the Nut Wizard. My brother discovered this tool on the Internet and brought one over to our farm during a recent family reunion, amazing everyone with its utility. So simple and elegant, the Nut Wizard is a wire basket reminiscent of an egg whisk, attached to rotating hubs on either end with a long wooden pole handle. You roll the wire basket around on the ground and walnuts or other similarly sized objects just pop right into it. When it's full, you simply lower the wire basket onto a heavy wire spreader (included) that clips onto the top of any five-gallon bucket and, voila, the gathered contents are quickly dumped!

I was impressed that it succeeds in picking up walnuts that have embedded themselves deep in the grass, as well as those that have lost their outer soft shell. Gooey walnuts are picked right up, and sometimes if the outer shells are really rotten, the messy parts get left behind and the rotating basket picks up just the more woody inner shell. By far the most impressive feat of the Nut Wizard is how it can get kids arguing over who gets to push it around the yard.

This tool is available in three sizes, collectively capable of picking up a wide range of items: acorns, pecans, hickory nuts, chestnuts, marbles, apples, baseballs, tennis balls, golf balls. And there's also now an even smaller version, the Ammo Wizard, that will pick up spent bullet casings.

If you take gardening seriously, then you know it all starts with soil health. But you can’t just look down and analyze it. The University of Massachusetts at Amherst offers cheap soil tests that will provide you with a comprehensive rundown of what your soil contains and what it needs.

I first had the soil test done back in 2001, and it showed low phosphorous, and very low levels of heavy metals. It gave specific instructions for adding nitrogen, phosphorous and limestone. For $9 they perform a standard soil test resulting in the following information: pH level, buffer pH, extractable nutrients (P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Zn, Cu, B), extractable heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Ni, Cr), and extractable aluminum, cation exchange capacity, percent base saturation. For $13 you get everything in the standard soil test and the amount of organic matter in your soil.

One of the most vital tests is the extractable heavy metals. Anyone planning to grow food near an old house that may have been painted with lead-based paints should perform this test to make sure you’re not growing your organic veggies in poisoned soil, which pretty much defeats the purpose.

The soil test also provides specific fertilization recommendations, based on what you're growing. This helps you customize your fertilizing practices, by letting you know what you need to add to make your soils more fertile. More importantly, you can use that soil test to cut back on the stuff your soil doesn’t need.

These are some of the cheapest soil tests available anywhere, and they provide immensely useful information. I first heard about them during my Master Gardener training a couple of decades ago. My only caveat is that the test is only as good as the sample provided. Make sure you follow their directions carefully.

I'm planning to redo the soil test, since I had raised beds added recently. The raised beds were filled with topsoil from a local company that composts yard and food waste. Now that I have good raised beds and drip irrigation, I'm gardening on a much larger scale and need better information. I took half a dozen large plastic sacks full of lettuce and spinach to the local food bank last year, and am hoping I'll be able to do that again next year.

I never seem to live anywhere a cart is usable, and I hate wheelbarrows. Working in my garden, I've hauled everything from straw bales to gravel with the help of Burden Cloths. I’ve been using them for about 20 years, and have the patio (3x3’) and farm (5x5’) sizes right now.

As opposed to a tarp or burlap, the Burden Cloth has one-inch-wide stout cotton webbing double-sewn around the entire edge of the cloth, adding strength and durability. Burlap just isn’t as sturdy as the material used in Burden Cloth. At the corners, the webbing comes out and forms a loop before continuing onto the next side. The loops are probably 6 to 8 inches in radius; you can custom order them larger. I get the recycled cloth option (canvas is available for a little more), and they always come in interesting colors or patterns.

You could certainly make your own: get sturdy cloth, stout webbing, and sew away. You probably wouldn't have to have a commercial sewing machine to do it, but I'm not sure. I could knit socks too, but I don't do that either.

In the gardens of paradise, all the vegetables would be perennial. No endless replanting. Just keep picking year after year. Like fruits and nuts. On earth there are more of these heavenly plants than you might think. This book rounds 'em up, with terrifically informative summaries, clear photos, and useful hints. A few of these recurring veggies are familiar -- asparagus, rhubarb, artichokes -- but most are exotics, so eating/cooking suggestions are given as well. I am a lazy gardener who favors perennials in our landscape garden, so I am inclined to be lazy in the food garden as well. But besides laziness, this is a great culinary adventure -- all kinds of Andean root crops I've never hear of, and bean trees, and bush spinach -- oh my! One hundred new friends. As a bonus the author takes the long-view and makes suggestions about promising varieties that amateurs could breed into better perennials. This is a fabulous book.

I have used Dramm Fogg-it hose nozzles for a variety of watering and irrigation purposes for more than ten years. They deliver a fine mist of water and are available in different strengths, measured as gallons per minute: ½ GPM, 1 GPM, 2 GPM and 4 GPM. I’ve used all but the 4 GPM model. The ½ GPM nozzle, attached to a wand, is perfect for laying down a fine mist of water on a hot deck to cool things down using a minimal amount of water. You can also water very fragile seedlings, or mist cuttings with it. I use the 1 GPM nozzle for watering seedlings and seed beds. The 2 GPM nozzle is great for general watering of established plants. The fine mist will not break down soil structure, and delivers slowly enough for the soil to take in the moisture without run-off.

I like the fact that I can tweak the flow rate by switching nozzles. If one takes too long, I use a nozzle with a higher flow rate. Or if the spray is damaging tender seedlings, then I use a more gentle nozzle. The fine spray is also a great way to revive a heat-wilted plant.

These nozzles are solid brass, tough and well made. I toss them around mercilessly. Also, mine have never clogged. They fit onto a standard ¾-inch fitting, so you can screw them onto your hose, or any water wand with a hose fitting. Their only drawback is that they're small enough to get lost easily.

Green Toys’ Sand Play Set, Tea Set and Indoor Gardening Kit all made their way into our home as gifts and then won us over across generational lines. They’re constructed of recycled milk cartons (high-density polyethylene), have a clean, attractive, colorful-but-not-garish aesthetic and are just shy of bulletproof. I could see the Green Toys sets we have looking new long after they’ve been handed down a handful of times.

The gardening kit's a pleasure because it requires parental involvement (for the recently post-toddler set, at least), and patience from grownups and kids, alike: Plant a seed and watch it grow is a long-term activity, after all. The kit comes with three seed options - basil, sunflower and zinnias -- if you don’t already have a supply on hand. Your child gets to choose what she wants to plant and take some ownership in the process. The toy’s renewable in that once your seedlings have grown enough to be transplanted elsewhere, you can plant another round. And another. Seasons permitting, of course.

Structurally, the green base tray with recessed spots to hold the three pots is an earnest attempt to maintain tidiness for indoor use, and it does keep order as well as provide a moisture barrier when placing the kit on top of furniture. Slightly deeper indentations in the base would help to hold the pots in place better; we’ve had some spills. Regardless, hydrating the compressed soil pucks is a reanimating spectacle for kids and parents.

Greywater is the term for all household wastewater except for the toilet and kitchen sink. This is the only comprehensive book I know of on the subject, and in this fifth and expanded edition, Art Ludwig explains how to choose, build, and use a variety of simple greywater systems. There are clear drawings for sending washing machine water into the garden (with or without a drum), for putting diversion valves on bathtubs or showers, for creating “mulch basins,” for ultra-simple setups like “Garden Hose Through the Bathroom,” and “Dishpan Dump (Bucketing)” -- the latter of which I've been practicing lately to the great benefit of both septic system and compost piles.

There’s a large section on branched drains -- splitting the flow and dispersing greywater to a number of mulch basins in the garden -- using gravity flow, no pumps or electricity. Mistakes made in greywater systems over the years are documented here, along with suggested improvements, and there's a two-page System Selection Chart with a comparison of 18 different systems.

When I began gardening I used a generic plastic watering can from a hardware store, but it didn't give a gentle enough flow for newly planted seeds, nor a fast enough stream for larger plants that drink a lot. The polyethylene Haws can's separate spout attachments (right angle downspout and oval brass rose) are outstanding features that make it a versatile performer. The right angle is useful for pinpointing the spot I'm aiming to water and also for avoiding watering a plant's leaves. The brass rose angled upward lets forth a gentle rain for delicate seedlings; angled downward it gives a still-gentle but stronger dispersed stream. With both spouts removed, a solid stream shoots straight out of the can for deeper watering and hitting the tough-to-reach corners of my raised beds. Two "parking spots" on the body of the can hold the spout attachments not in use, so they're never misplaced. Changing modes -- and changing back -- couldn't be easier. The only drawback I've encountered is that the fine holes in the brass rose clog easily and need to be cleaned regularly to work well. But until I graduate to drip irrigation, this is the perfect tool.

Fiskars' PowerGear Bypass Pruner, previously reviewed, is the handiest, most used tool in my vegetable garden, but it's too big and clunky for precision cutting of young salad greens and herbs. For that task, the company's Pruning Snip is an outstanding and inexpensive tool.

Snipping action requires little effort because the short blades are quite sharp and a spring in the center of the handle returns the shear to its open position after each cut. A small garden scissors could work almost as well as this tool, but the spring-activated light-action cutting makes a big difference for ease of use. Like the larger pruner mentioned above, this model gives a lot of cutting output with disproportionately little input. This shear is also useful for carefully thinning densely grouped seedlings by cutting the excess plants at their bases.

The most recent addition to my quiver of essential landscaping tools is the stirrup hoe. The stirrup hoe is a deceptively simple device which, as the name implies, is a stirrup-shaped blade attached to the end of a stout wooden handle.

The stirrup hoe has two primary functions: First, it is useful for loosening the top layer of soil in a garden or flowerbed. The horizontal blade tends to glide about an inch beneath the surface of the soil without noticeably disturbing the soil. Weeds can deposit seeds that remain dormant in the soil until exposed to sunlight. While turning the soil with a spade brings these unwanted seeds to light the stirrup hoe leaves them in the dark. I prefer using a long pulling motion with this hoe while others recommend working it back and forth.

The second use for this tool is weeding. As the stirrup hoe glides through the soil, it snags weeds at their roots. The entire plant usually comes out of the dirt with less mess than if you pulled it by hand. Using my stirrup hoe, I recently weeded 30 feet of an abandoned flowerbed in about 10 minutes. Normally, this job would have taken at least an hour.

Prices range from about $15 for the Sears Craftsman model (with lifetime warranty) I use to $33 for the high-end Swiss-made Glaser (handle sold separately).

Grubbing docks, thistles and established ragwort out of grassland is a backbreaking task, but it can be the quickest way to keep these invasive weeds under control. However, anyone who's tried knows it's common to wind up with a broken fork or shovel handle in the process. The Lazy Dog, a skeleton of stainless steel rods with two handles, is tipped with an interchangeable slender three-pronged fork (a "Grubbing Nose"). Its ultra-light open structure hardly seems strong enough to lift a dandelion let alone master an established dock crown, but it has strength in all the right places and works amazingly well: I've hauled a five-year established dock crown out of the ground with a single pull of the long handle. Yet, the tool is so light, I can work for hours with it.

Think of the Lazy Dog as Grandpa's Weeder on steroids. While a dandelion crown might be 1/2" across and 5" long, a five-year-old dock crown can grow to 4" across and over 2 feet deep (!). I've found it can take three or four chops with a sharp spade even to chop through a tough, woody crown like that. And if you don't get the crown out, they just grow right back. The Lazy Dog does a great job of lifting the ragwort crown and easing the roots out with it, rather than just cracking the crown off from the roots or worse, breaking the crown and leaving bits behind.

When I first got one five years ago, I put it to the test on some dock crowns that had infested my paddock for several years. The slim three-tine fork drove easily into the ground with the push of a foot on the protruding 'booting shoulder', which also doubles as a cantilever point for the next stage. Then you just pull back using the two rubber handles. The Lazy Dog has clearly been designed to process these forces efficiently, because there is not the slightest sign of weakness or 'under building' when the load goes on. At this point, the Lazy Dog shows you how it earned its name: The leverage from the long handle -- magnified through the cantilever and delivered into the fork -- near effortlessly breaks the dock's hold on the ground. With a satisfying crack, the crown is removed with the absolute minimum disruption to the ground. And you don't even need to stoop down to clear the fork; the mid-frame handle lets you lift up the tool to clear any jams or remove a crown for disposal. Really saves your back.

Prior to the Lazy Dog, I had used a ragfork with moderate success: It makes a big hole and is heavy work. Before that, I had used conventional garden forks: I broke the handle on one and a tine on another, and ended up using a forged Roadmans Fork, a real back breaker. The Lazy Dog is not a cheap Chinese import. It'll set you back around $100 for a frame and one fork (I have both a large and smaller one -- the former is ideal for docks; the latter is better for ragwort). However, it is well worth the price.

The only drawback is the lifting noses are cast (for strength), so they must be cleaned and waxed after use to prevent corrosion. Strangely enough though, the Lazy Dog is such a dream of a tool to use, it is actually a pleasure to clean and wax the fork in anticipation of using the tool next time. Since it is light enough to use as a walking stick, I take it with me whenever I walk the paddocks -- just in case I am lucky enough to come across a wayward weed.

In the 1970s British bus driver Ken Fern went back to the land. Twenty-five years later he published the first edition of this now-revised compendium, a catalog and guide to a staggering number of mostly-perennial plants that can be harvested for food and other uses. Literally, thousands of seed, root, fruit, flower and leaf crops from a range of bulbs, trees, shrubs, climbers, bamboos, water plants and more. Beyond climatic needs and appearance, plants are described in terms of their taste and, often, highly-specific use (e.g. Asarum canadense. SNAKE ROOT: "a ginger substitute in flavouring cooked foods."). The index is conveniently broken up into edible uses, like condiments and egg and salt substitutes, and non-edible uses, like basketry, disinfectant, and tooth care; For more, check out 100 Other Uses. And actually, the Plants for a Future web site offers a searchable database of 7,000 plants. While much of the info from the book is available online, the printed format can be easier to parse and digest. There are sections on "green manures" and how to mulch with cardboard boxes or newspaper and straw, as well as how to make a pond. Despite all the ideas and potential outlined in the book, the final chapter, "Future Possibilities," truly emphasizes the magical allure of cultivation and experimentation.

Mushrooms as solution. Fungi as ninja warriors. That's what this spirited, hyperkinetic book offers. Mushrooms as solutions to pollution (mycological remediation), fungi as a soil supplements for vegetables (companion planting), and as a source of human medical nutrition (harvested from inoculated logs, sawdust, cardboard) -- in other words, mushrooms to save the world. It's sort of crazy, far fetched ... but not. There's a lot of original ideas in this thickly illustrated book, with some fantastic visions, but all of it surrounded by deep strands of very practical how-to advice. How to grow fungi in your yard, or in toxic waste dumps, or anywhere. The author claims that the running mycelium of mushrooms were the first internet, and after you see what fungi can really do, you'll believe him. This book is about how to employ fungi to get things done. Mushrooms as overlooked tools.

I bought a Mighty Mac shredder/chipper about 25 years ago, have used it -- heavily at times -- all these years and, with a few engine repairs and turning the shredder blades around once (they are 2-sided), it's worked flawlessly on our 1/2-acre homestead. This is a "hammermill" chipper with free-swinging hammer blades for the top-feed hopper, as well as a chipper, a side feed where you put in larger branches (it will grind up a 2x4) at a 90-degree angle to the balanced flywheel blade that runs on the same axle as the shredder blades. If you get one of the bigger professional type units you don't need a separate grinder, but for home-style operation, I wouldn't fool with any of the lower-cost feed-it-in-the-top units. You don't really need to shred stuff like oak leaves (they compost nicely as is), and the smaller shredders tend to choke on stuff such as 1-incg diameter branches. This unit has changeable screens so you can adjust from fine to coarse output.

Be aware: these are dangerous tools. If you get careless and push down on brush in the hopper and get a sleeve caught in the blades, you'll end up with a mangled (or no) hand. See the simple 2x4 pusher tool below for pushing stuck vegetation into the blades. I also use a Collins machete for chopping up branches for easy feeding and of course -- Grandma speaking here -- goggles (chips fly), earphones, and gloves.

Mine (depicted above) has a 7HP Briggs and Stratton motor. The current models have a 10 HP. I wouldn't bother with the electric starter; the rope pull works fine.

These plastic quick connects from Melnor are the go-betweens for the hose and whatever nozzle, sprinklers or other hose-end attachments you may have. They're especially good for quickly moving and attaching hoses from one faucet to another. I installed them on ALL my faucets (5) and hoses (perhaps 7) and external attachments (probably 10). I have used them for about a year and wonder how I ever got along without them. It takes less than a second (maybe 1/2 second) to attach or detach any hose or attachment. They are installed in pairs, a male and corresponding female connector, with the appropriate threaded fitting to attach to the faucet, hose or nozzle attachment, one on each side of the connection. You just firmly push the connector into its counterpart, and it easily pops into place -- firmly means it does need a little pressure, but even a small child could do it. To disconnect, you push the green collar about an eighth of an inch in the one direction it's capable of moving, and it pops off. (Similar devices have been in use in industry for a long time -- on compressed air lines, for example). No more screwing and unscrewing (no more scraped knuckles); no more leaks from incompletely tightened hoses; no more stuck connections because some gorilla (i.e. me) tried to stop a leak by tightening too hard.

One type is designed so that when you disconnect from it, an internal plug pops into place and stops water from coming out. The other type, for between a faucet and hose, does not have the shutoff. When you disconnect the hose from the faucet, water will still flow and the faucet can still be used. There are other brands and styles; some are even made of pricier brass, but I recommend you stick with one manufacturer because connectors are generally not interchangeable between brands. And these inexpensive plastic ones from Melnor are well made: I have (intentionally) very high water pressure (> 100 psi, sufficient to burst hoses) on my garden faucets, and I have had no leaks from these connectors.

Home gardeners often need to dig small, deep, precise holes. Because the rabbiting spade is narrow and deep, it facilitates digging moderately-deep, steep-sided narrow holes that are optimal for planting perennials and shrubs without disturbing existing plantings. You want to be able to remove that misjudged rose that's too close to the agapanthus -- or, alternatively, you want to nestle one rose up to the agapanthus without disturbing its roots more than absolutely necessary.

The advantage of a rabbiting/poacher's spade over any hand tool is that you can use it in heavy soil, getting the full power of standing up. Using our previous rabbiting spade (no longer available from Smith & Hawken), my husband was able to dig me a foot-deep asparagus bed in New England clay laced with glacial debris. I wouldn't care to do that with a hand shovel or trowel. Also, a rabbiting spade has only a 10" blade, and thus is easier to maneuver than something like a drain spade, which has a 14" blade. When you're planting small perennials, like peonies or roses, a 14" blade is overkill. This spade is small, light, and easy to carry, while still being powerful enough to do the job.

This particular spade is not cheap, but it's durable and made by a long-standing British business (Mr. Spear co-founded Spear & Love in 1760). Spear & Jackson's spade has an epoxy coating, which means it won't rust and should continue to slip through soil easily, and it has a hammered socket rather than a tang, so the join between the handle and the spade should last over time. I expect this rabbiting spade to last me a lifetime.

If you keep rigid, used 5 gallon spackle buckets with broken handles and cracked sides for odd jobs, you should recycle 'em and get these plastic buckets. They are molded in one piece with two integrated handles. The handles are large enough that they won't hurt your palms or break away. There are too many uses to list, but I got mine earlier this year and have mostly used them in the garden where I've moved a lot of dirt and mulch and some large plants. The units are strong enough to fill completely with dirt, at which point they are too heavy for me to carry alone. I was most impressed with the ease with which I moved a large rock, which required two of us to lift. Yet, the tubs, which wipe clean easy, are still flexible enough to form a pouring spout.

This unique chainsaw is especially good for sawing slender limbs that a traditional chainsaw tends to keep pushing away instead of cutting, a particularly frustrating and dangerous thing when perched on a ladder. It's small and light, and thanks to the scissors-like gripper one can easily manage fairly large limbs when up on a ladder. We have elms, a cottonwood, a pear tree, a crab apple, and a box elder, and I use mine generally one to two times a year unless wind damage or heavy snowfall breaks some limbs. Manual loppers are longer than the Alligator, so they have better reach. However, they require greater arm spread, too. The advantage of the Alligator is cutting speed, gripping-power, and its light weight and maneuverability.

-- Dirk Murcray

This lopper-on-steroids is also great for those of us with a touch of chainsaw-phobia, since the cutting chain is covered by the guards and you don't have to worry as much about kick-back and such. I had procrastinated for months about cutting a stand of saplings because I dislike chainsaws, but I breezed through them in a few hours with my trusty Alligator -- it was even kinda fun! If you dread using a chainsaw, but have to cut branches too big for your lopper, get one of these puppies. Cuts anything up to 4 inches in diameter. I've had mine for about 8 months and have since gotten a lot of yard clean-up done that I was putting off (anything too big for a standard lopper). One unforeseen problem: all my friends keep wanting to borrow it...and keep it. Get your own, guys!

-- Barbara Dace

For anyone who likes fresh flowers, herbs, vegetables, or fruits, but lives in urban areas or homes where maintaining a garden may not be an option, this in-house, aeroponic garden is convenient and manageable (there's no potting or soil involved, just a little bit of water and nutrient tablets).

I received one as a present last year and have had the "gourmet herb" kit planted ever since with great results - very high quality and it produces the yields advertised. It took about 4 weeks for our kit to reach full maturity and we've harvested each plant at least 10 times -- some as many as 20 or 30. Each kit comes with little pods preset with seeds, so starting up is as simple a matter as inserting the pods (in the order the manufacturer prescribes to avoid plant competition), adding water and the provided nutrients (which are organic), and turning on the garden lights (two fluorescent bulbs).

We love having the herbs in the kitchen (Cilantro, Chives, Italian Basil, Red Rubin, Basil, Dill, Mint, Parsley). We also have an herb garden outside, but this is nice for quick grabs, and it's not a bad looking thing to have on the counter. We're about to switch over to the strawberry kit, which they say yields 5 pounds of strawberries in 6 weeks and continues for 6 months thereafter.

We went into it knowing it probably wouldn't be a money saver, so I can't say that it's a net win on costs compared to the grocery simply because I haven't done the math. Because of the energy consumption (I think we noticed our electric bill jump between $10 and $15 per month), it's probably a bit of a luxury item best attuned to those in urban areas and/or those who can't keep their own gardens (because of geography, climate, etc.). If someone's going to use this to grow flowers, I would again mention you'll notice a small increase on your electric bill from running the lights for around 18 hours per day. Thus, I'd recommend growing something you can harvest to get a little bit more for your money.

Either way, for those who lack the green thumb this garden makes for pretty failsafe results.

I've over-watered my share of temperamental plants into oblivion. This pot uses a simple method of providing the right amount of water and nutrients to a plant so you don't forget and let it go dry or over-water the plant. There is a water reservoir below the plant pot that supplies water to the pot through a wick that is in the bottom of the pot and extends into the reservoir. Just add nutrient to the water (about a teaspoon of something like Miracle Grow in a gallon of water) and the plant takes care of the rest. Now I just have to remember to refill the reservoir every month or so, and our African violets grow and bloom with only rare attention from us.

We tried raising African violets with limited success, until one of our friends gave us this Wick Pot. The violets come with a long list of care and feeding instructions regarding watering schedules, humidity, temperature, and the like. This planter is a godsend to those of us with brown thumbs looking to grow non-native plants (we live in Houston). The pot obviously will not change ambient light or humidity levels, but using one means the plant requires almost no care and feeding whatsoever. The Wick Pot also lets you be much less precise about the amount of water you refill because you're filling the reservoir as opposed to putting it directly into the pot.

There are other self-watering planters out there, but Volkmann's provides a cheap option and they also have full kits available (includes feed fertilizer, wick pot and soil) that are very reasonably priced. Of course this method is so simple, if you wanted to you could also fabricate a pot for yourself by using a recycled plastic container, a potted plant and a short piece of wick placed between the pot and reservoir.

This nifty, lightweight (33 lbs.) garden cart will fit into any spare cranny in the garden shed or garage. It folds into a long, slender package about six inches wide at the wheel hubs, and three or four feet long. While I wouldn't go dropping jagged boulders into it, it's proven a tough, sturdy and useful hauling tool for gardening or otherwise over the couple years I've had it. I've mounded it high with bark, manure, compost and brush (the load limit is 330 lbs.), and it's performed like a champ.

Because of its smooth aluminum surface, it hoses clean for transporting non-dirty items. The gate on the front of the cart is basically a reinforced flat sheet of metal with a folded U-shaped channel that interlocks with a similar folded U-shaped channel on the cart. I feel obliged to mention that one time I was hauling a composted sawdust/manure mixture and some of it got caught in the channels of the lift gate. Since then I haven't been able to get the gate all the way down, but it's really a minor issue. The gap is only about an inch and stuff doesn't seem to leak out the front.

Overall, this cart is just a marvelous, very maneuverable device for the storage challenged person. There is a slightly cheaper folding cart by Bully that can haul up to 400lbs. However, with the Tipke Fold-it, you can also buy a trailer or bike hitch, and front gates in a couple of heights. I haven't used either of the hitches, so I don't know how well they work, but if you're a gardening biker looking to kill two birds with one stone, this could fit the bill nicely.

I was more burdened by wet garbage than I thought, and more relieved than I expected by a fiendishly simple device called the Green Cone.

Regular composters are notoriously picky: no bones, no meat, no oil, no avocado pits or shells, no citrus peels, no dairy products. The Green Cone happily devours all that stuff, which means that pretty much all your kitchen waste can go in it, right now. File and forget.

All you need is some yard and a spot that gets sunshine. The Cone's perforated plastic basket is sunk two feet into the ground. The Cone stands 28 inches above the ground, collecting sun warmth to encourage the bacteria down below who are chowing on the garbage and seeping the resultant nutrients into the soil. Thanks to the ground seal around the basket, there's no smell at all, except when you open the top of the Cone to add more yummy garbage for the microbes.

Garden wastes should not go in the Cone, because they would overwhelm it with volume. Nor should paper or plastic products, which is about all you'll have left in your now light and odorless kitchen trash bin.

Those of us who use little or no chemicals in our grass yards have to manually weed if we wish to maintain our landscaping. By trial and error I have settled on using 'Grandpa's Weeder'. This tool has been around for decades, and works as advertised. With a simple two step process you can manually pull weeds, roots and all, from the ground without having to bend down. There are similar items available, but none have worked as well for me as this old timer.

Do plants have ideas? Yes.

I use this monthly to troll for the best in the art and science of gardening. Each month editors Greg and Pat Williams extract the meatiest, handiest, most practical innovations in vegetable, fruit and flower horticulture. They tirelessly glean material from obscure ag-extension bulletins, garden club newsletters, seed catalogs and dusty journals, reading it all so you don't have to, and translating it into clear English so you can use it. They run no pictures, no ads; only concepts, tools, and techniques. It's sort of like a Cook's Illustrated for your garden -- the advice is based on scientific testing, and the tools born out of genuine need.

The format is intelligent too. These days the newsletter (which has been in print for 20 years) can be emailed as PDF files. Because HortIdeas reports "news that stays new", I recommend the nifty CD of the last 7 years of their back issues. In all its forms this humble yet intelligent newsletter is an amazing service which should appeal to anyone with a love of perfecting what is possible.

THE tool for the job if you're uprooting alien and invasive plants such as French broom and Scotch broom. Those plants, like other invasives, tend to form aggressive monoculture areas that drive out local biodiversity, and they often make dense undergrowth fire hazards. Ripping them out is a kind of joy -- a fine workout, more productive in every way than a couple hours at the gym.

Built like a cast-iron frying pan, the Weed Wrench is a seriously macho tool. Its fierce jaws grip the miscreant plant or small tree by the throat (base of stem), and big leverage yanks it bodily out of the ground. If you get the smallest (mini) and the largest Weed Wrenches, you've got everything covered up to 2 inch diameter (beyond that, use a saw).

-- Stewart Brand

Many of us who own land in coastal northern California have a constant problem eradicating (or even keeping under control) Scotch broom, that ubiquitous plant with the yellow flowers that covers more of the hills every year. After a rain it isn't too hard to pull out if you have a strong back and the right warrior spirit. But sometimes they are just too big or the ground is too dry. That's when you need the Weed Wrench. It's basically a big lever with a set of jaws at ground level to grip the trunk of the plant. You pull slowly until the jaws engage then yank it out of the ground, roots and all. If broom or other woody weeds are a problem for you, get one of these things. There's nothing else that even comes close for effective broom removal. It amazes me that they aren't in every hardware story in northern California, but so it is. Order it from the web site. They come in four sizes. The medium is probably best for most jobs.

-- John Coate

Weed Wrench
$155 (Medium)
Available from Weed Wrench Company

This hand clipper is a really cool ergonomic innovation. It uses an ingenious gear design to easily slice off sticks that are 3/4 inch in diameter. As you squeeze, the bottom handle rolls slightly and this motion leverages the power in the scissor cut. I find I can now tackle stuff that ordinarily I would have had to run back to get the larger pruners for. Your Felco pruning clippers will last you a lifetime, but as my grip wanes, I find I this lightweight Fiskars pruner is the clipper I grab first.

Buy from the producer, sell your own. Just about anything 'agricultural'; llamas, cotton, flower seeds, bean seeds, farms, farm trucks (or trucks in general), bulk wine, employment ops, whew. I found this site while looking for a cacao plant to buy. Some fellow is selling his here. There's sort of an online list that's updated when anyone puts something on the list.

When I first realized that my housemates were serious about me using a push mower to cut our yard, I was a little skeptical. Eventually I was won over by the environmental benefits and the sense of accomplishment that I received from using a "reel mower". The first mower we purchased is literally called the "Prison reel mower" and I wouldn't recommend it. The Brill Luxus 38 Reel Mower on the other hand is a sweet piece of engineering. It is very light at 17 pounds, weather resistant, and has variable height ranges. It feels good in your hands and seems very well designed. Now that I use it, I wouldn't even consider buying a gas or electric powered mower for an average size yard. But let me warn you, using a manual mower is physically much harder, takes more time, and is very difficult if not impossible with tall grass (which means regular mowing). Whether you choose to look at that as an environmentally friendly and money-saving workout or a punishment is up to you.

-- Patrick Chen

For the past 20 years I've cut my lawn with a hand reel mower. Reel mowers are wonderful -- when they are new. The major drawback is not the mild workout, but keeping the blades sharp over time. You can't sharpen the helical blades of a reel mower without a special jig (at least I can't). Yet getting it sharpened at the shop will set you back $50 each time. That adds up real fast. And if a reel mower isn't razor sharp (unlike a power one) cutting the grass does turn into punishment. That's why the Brill is so interesting. Because its blades do not touch the cutter bar, it claims the average interval for resharpening is 8 years. I don't know anyone who has had one that long (German-made Brill is big in Europe but new in the US), but in theory this could prolong the duration between sharpenings and change the equation for keeping a manual reel mower going. That is good news because I've found that I can cut our small irregular lawn just as fast, and with no more sweat, using a sharp push mower.

-- KK

FAQ
People Powered Machines

Bloody Butcher Corn (Seedsavers Exchange)

Gardening catalogs are the very epitome of dreambooks. Some are quite beautiful, all ripe with the promise of fulfillment in a slightly other universe, but here are the three that make late winter in the heartland a little less bitter:

Seedsavers Exchange puts out a gorgeous catalog and promotes Earth-respecting attitudes with no preaching or guilt-laying. Their online version is, to my mind, among the best designs of its kind. Their descriptions usually include a few words about the histories and sources of their heirloom varieties -- makes it hard not to feel involved with the ancient epic of how "weeds" got turned into the exquisite diversity of crop plants we take for granted these days.

Johnny's Selected Seeds is a commercial version of a labor of love. It's a real working catalog with limited color photos but a large and well-selected inventory of standard, heirloom, and organic veggie, herb, flower, grain, and covercrop seeds. What makes the catalog special is its generosity with information. If you need a tomato that resists some particular kind of rot, you'll probably find it here. You'll probably find it in other catalogs, too, but won't necessarily know it. There's extensive cultural, climate, and harvesting info that makes me resent almost all other catalogs for their lack of same. Johnny's really wants their seeds to grow strong and prosper.

Gardens Alive is a southern Indiana seller of products for organic/"environmentally responsible" gardening and growing. Natural fertilizers, biocontrols (they grow critters like parasitic wasps and nematodes themselves), natural lawn magic, redworms, composting accessories -- a fairly thick little catalog with basic graphics and all kinds of dreams for the garden geek. Dozen-page guides to plant diseases, nutritional lacks, bugs. I get the same kind of thrill pawing through this jammed volume that I used to get with Edmunds or American Science and Surplus or the fireworks spreads, or, well, Whole Earth Catalog -- It just makes my hands itch to get out there and tinker.

The Mantis tiller is a lightweight tiller (about 25 lbs), which allows for better portability than heavier tillers. It is easily moved from location to location (try that with a big Troy-bilt), and will handle a variety of jobs with various blades on the tiller shafts: tilling, digging shrub or tree holes, aerating lawns, de-thatching lawns, edging sidewalks or planting beds, making the vertical cuts in sod to be (re-)moved,mixing compost, or even a new steel spring wheel designed to clean cracks or debris and weeds in sidewalks or patios. I have three large bins (4x4x6-feet each) that I use for composting leaves and grass clippings. I simply take down the front boards and use the Mantis to mix the compost inside and in front of the bins. Then I put the boards back and reload the bins with the mixture. Short work with the Mantis. After viewing my Mantis in action, a landscape company supervisor in Peachtree City bought ten (10) of them for his company use, one for each of their work trucks.

A Mantis is better than competing small tillers like the Honda or Sears, because of the unique design of the tiller blades. They can be swapped side to side to till deeply or lightly, are very sharp and have a squiggly (my word) design that thoroughly mixes the soil. The tiller blades are warranted against breakage. The worm-gear design of the shaft that drives the tiller axles may be unique, as well, since it is very hard to stall this tiller, no matter how many vines you wrap around the axles. The variety of blades, plus the ability to use them for light or heavy penetration (e.g., tilling, aerating and edging) makes the Mantis somewhat unique.

It is not a "heavy-duty" tiller that you would usually use to till an acre of ground. If I needed that job done, I'd rent a Troy-bilt or other massive tiller for dedicated tilling of large areas, even though they are not very easy to transport or use. However my brother used his Mantis to till a large lawn (1/3 acre) which need to be re-sodded.

-- Jim Stagg

The Mantis is a little jewel. They are exceptionally easy to work with, being easy to start and incredibly lightweight. I have two caveats though: 1) To use it most effectively, you have to put it in front of you and then walk backwards, dragging the machine with you while simultaneously trying to keep on eye on the machine and where you're about to step. 2) Tough plants have a tendency to get tangled up in the tines. Fortunately, the tines can be removed, cleaned of offending material, and replaced very quickly.

By the way, Mantis offers a lifetime guarantee on the tiller's tines. If a tine ever breaks, they'll replace it. Hmm.. I guess that would be a "lifetine" guarantee! :) Every home with a garden should have one of these. They're that good.

-- John Bodoni

Light, sharp, ergonomic and quiet, this European scythe is not what you'll find in your local hardware store. The handle (snath) is custom-fit, so you stand comfortably upright while 'sweeping' weeds and grass down with ease. Potential uses range from small-acreage hay cutting to weed and brush clearing in variable terrain. I use it as a weed-whacker replacement on my long driveway. You can talk to people and hear birds while 'weed-whacking'. Pretty sweet. The price for a new one puts it up there with gas-powered weed-whackers, but I find the experience much more enjoyable. Honestly, I believe you can clear more area with less sweat using a European scythe than a powered string-trimmer. The key is the light weight of the tool and the sharpness of the blade.

Most people are stunned when they see me take down grass or weed stalks with little more than a gentle nick from the blade. Furthermore, getting it custom fit will make it probably the most pleasant-to-use garden tool you'll ever have. (I'm unusually tall, so maybe this impresses me more than it would a 5'9" man, for example). Here's how a European scythe and string-trimmer weed whacker tally up to each other:

Scythe Pros
Scythe is lighter. Likely to be considerably more ergonomic. Quiet. Free from power source. Stalks intact, no pulverizing of plant-matter.

Scythe Cons
Must keep the blade *sharp* (The $170 kit comes with peening jig and whetstone). Sometimes the direction of approach makes a particular weed hard to cut. You won't be able to pulverize a weed in between rocks or hard things. You must not let the blade hit hard things like rocks or metal.

For those considering a scythe, be sure to get the European style and help end this sad era that has had Americans breaking their backs with horribly un-ergonomic, heavy scythes. For instance, European blades weigh 15 oz, while American style ones weigh twice as much, at 30 oz! Besides the weight difference, the tang on the American style is not angled to help you cut the stalks. The blades are thicker and not as sharp, etc. You'll find a lot more info on why and how to use this tool at Scythe Supply.

This robotic lawn mower has saved me time and kept my lawn looking great for two years now. It keeps the lawn healthy because it only cuts a little bit of grass each day and it turns into fertilizer very quickly. Once the mower is set up, it comes out as programmed to and returns home to be charged when the programmed time is up or the batteries run down. It even has a rain sensor to send it home when it starts to rain.

Are you kidding? A 500,000 BTU heat source to kill weeds? The Red Dragon is not really intended for garden weeding. Because we have a no-pesticide agreement, I use the torch to control weeds on our 600 ft long gravel driveway in the North Georgia mountains. In addition, it would be useful if you just wanted to light something on fire: burning off fields, starting piles of damp wood, etc.

There are cheaper smaller ones (only 100,00 BTUs) also made by Flame Engineering, but I sure like the one I have. Do you really need those extra 400,000 BTUs? A friend of mine has a smaller one that takes *forever* to show an effect. With mine, you can just wave it across a weed and it discolors almost instantly (usually enough to kill it). However, that's not much fun. A few more seconds of flame will incinerate the weed completely. Yeah, the extra heat makes a huge difference. When lit, the torch produces a 2 foot long, 5 inch wide column of blue flame that sounds like a (quiet) jet engine. That said, the flame doesn't spread much, so it's fairly easy to control. Every pyro needs one.

Organic gardeners, both backyard and commercial, know this mail-order outfit as the premier source for organic farming supplies. They've got everything: Natural pest controls, insect traps, cover crop seeds in bulk, sticky tape in all varieties. I mean where else can you buy a gallon of milky spore disease (for Japanese beetles), or white fly parasites in quantities of a thousand, or red worm *eggs*, with a side order of bat guano? Not only do they carry mulching film in standard black, but they also have it in innovative silver, green or red colors as well -- each spectrum producing different effects for different plants.

But this catalog is also useful in other ways. Non-gardeners and green householders will find hard-to-find products such as poison-free cockroach traps which use cockroach pheromones.

Best of all, Peaceful Valley collects the best gear for growers of any type. Here is your source for plastic deer fencing, the world's best walk-behind Italian tillers, superlative hand tools, the best selection of drip irrigation supplies, and -- my favorite -- reusable foam seedling trays. You'll find this source absolutely essential if you grow anything.

This catalog is a throwback to the mail order catalogs of old. 1) They tend to only sell the best stuff, not just the best-selling or most profitable , and 2) they still print it on paper. You can spend several evenings reading it with great profit. You get a short course in state of the art practices for small time farmer and serious gardening.

They have a pretty good website, too (but not as informative as the paper catalog). And they are easy to work with.

I use this tool for hand-to-root combat with weeds, but it does many other things, all very well. It's a weeding and digging tool with a serrated edge on one side for opening bags and cutting roots. The handle is wooden and fits nicely in the hand. The blade comes in two types, carbon steel and stainless. I have the carbon steel variety. It's beefy, easy to clean, slides through all matter of matter. Elegant.

This is a new plant propagation method/tool that allows you to produce large, rooted plantlets from woody plants (with stems up to 25 mm diameter) within one growing season (~ 2-3 months). Since I got them 2 months ago, I very easily rooted a large, marketable Schefflera in about 45 days and a 12" - 14" tall Ficus in ~60 days. I talked to an associate in Australia who has rooted almond. The concept is exciting because you should be able to produce a usable plant in 1/3 the time (one growing season vs three). I do expect that, with grower experience, almost any woody species that can be grafted can be propagated faster / less expensively using the Rooter Pot.

I bought them specifically to (try to) clone American chestnut selections for preservation without grafting. I expect to successfully clone mature conifers which are usually grafted for seed production. Rooter Pots are reusable. A larger-sized pot is now available for stems up to 1 inch in diameter.

My wife used to come in after a day of gardening with her hands roughened and scratched. Sure, she had gardening gloves, but they'd always get pulled off and forgotten the first time she had to do anything delicate. Leather, canvas, cotton -- nothing would stay on her hands.

Last year she picked up a pair of Atlas 370 gloves at the local garden store. They're extremely thin, lightweight, and flexible, so there's no need to take them off. The palm is tough nitrile -- made it through a season with no punctures or tears -- while the back is a cool, breathable knit. You could tie your shoes without taking these off.

These gloves were actually designed for precision assemblers. Gardeners discovered them and adopted them in a heartbeat. They're pretty easy to find at local garden centers (many of which also carry a heavier cold-weather version), but several on-line retailers stock them.

I love this tool. I've worked in landscaping, and for one very long winter I cut brush in our city parks. I wish I had these then. If you think a pruning saw can go through a branch like a hot knife through butter, just try these Fiskars! Not as portable as my little folding pruning saws, but oooh the leverage action is sweet and effortless! One landscaping company I worked for used Sandvik loppers, and they were impressive, but I still think the Fiskars are the best so far. They have more leverage than similar sized loppers I've used. And they're easy on the elbows and shoulders, too. When the jaws close, they don't hammer together like those usual cheesy excuses for a tool.

I've tried the 18" (or thereabouts) short version of these Fiskars PowerGear loppers, and for their size, they're very nice too. Friends of mine used that model to clear honeysuckle bushes from their back lot. So far, every Fiskars product I've used has been top notch.

For the close-to-hand pruning, I have my trusty Felco. For branches further than I can reach with a lopper, I use a big, unwieldy pole pruner with a pull-rope to muscle the clipper. It's overkill for smaller out of reach plants but for decades it was all I knew. Then I discovered the telescoping long arm pruner: easy to extend and collapse, lightweight, and it holds the clipping until you release the trigger, enabling efficient stashing of clippings in a lawn bag. This model, made in Japan, features two pistol grips for two-armed aiming, which most other telescoping pruners don't have. And its telescoping capability unlocks quickly with a lever instead of having to tighten and untighten a collar. This is now one of my favorite tools on a daily basis, considering all the huffing and puffing I used to do to clear ivy or deadhead roses high up on the fence.

These days specialty markets even in small towns sell once-exotic fruits. Asian pears, Japanese Persimmons, Kiwi fruits, and so on. This book is an inspiration and guide to planting these and other exotic fruits in your own backyard. Many uncommon fruits are hardier and easier to grow in the US than the traditional backyard fruits. Much uncommon fruit featured here you can't buy anywhere: Nanking Cherries, Medlars, Pawpaws. We have a few in our yard and cheered by this collection of fruits I've never heard of, and encouraged by the mail order sources and horticultural instructions, I'm ready for more.

We are lucky to have a few apple & peach trees, but they have to be sprayed to insure tasty fruit. Trouble is some are about 20 feet high. I tried a bunch of sprayers, all poor performers, until I discovered the Hudson Trombone Tree Sprayer. It works like using a trombone and throws a great spray -- they claim to around 25 feet high and that looks about right. A connecting hose maybe 7-8 feet long rests with a sort of small shower-head-like filter in the bottom of a bucket (not provided).

It uses plain old arm power. You feel like Elliot Ness in the "Untouchables" wielding a Tommy gun, but it works great, is only about $40 (get the one with the two gun grips) and even builds up your forearms and shoulder muscles. It's also got an adjustable nozzle to adjust spray. It really throws a good heavy directed or dispersed spray; I'm surprised at how much more quickly it gets the job done. Way outperforms pump-up pressure tank ones.

You can grow bamboo where you live. This exceptionally clear guide deals with the nitty-gritty of bamboo cultivation and propagation and covers about 200 varieties suited to temperate regions. Lots of color photos help identification. Great book. The bamboo in our garden won't stop. Long live bamboo!

I am shocked at how long it took me to figure out the virtues of a pruning saw. For three decades I have sweated with a regular hand saw to lop off hefty tree branches, tidy up firewood, trim Christmas tree stumps, and cut down shrubs. (Trimming branches is really not a place for a mini-chain saw even if I had one). Yet month after month my regular saw would bind up in green, wet or frozen wood. On principle I avoid one-job tools, which is what a pruning saw sounded like. However when I finally got a pruning saw it was like a hot knife slicing through buttery wood. I don't think it matters much what brand you get. I now have two: a folding 7" Coleman I take car camping, and a 13" Corona Curved I use for landscaping at home. The wolfishly large teeth bite off visible chips without binding, and in no time the wettest, greenest wood is cut. But you already knew this, right?

With patience and discretion, one could grow the most magnificent flower garden with only $100 worth of seeds. Author and poet James Fenton brings the wisdom (and a highly evolved list of plants); you'll need the patience.

An ordinary tool with extraordinary utility and ruggedness is something called a McLeod. It's a heavy duty combination rake and hoe with a 12" steel blade, introduced to me by friends in the US Forest Service who use McLeods for a variety of firefighting tasks; I use mine for gardening and landscaping (and fire protection, too). It does almost everything I need outside, from chopping weeds to smoothing planting beds, cutting trails, and raking up leaves and brush. A McLeod eliminates the need for dragging around a shovel, and a hoe, and a rake and a pick. There are multiple vendors online. Recently we bought one to be used at a remote cabin for $60 from Baileys, suppliers of a wide range of professional fire fighting tools.

A mail order supplier of dazzlingly hardy plants (mostly perennials) adapted to west of the Rockies. They specialize in drought resistance (xeric) varieties, which of course can be established in non-desert areas. Unlike many mail order outfits, they don't deal in seed, but in young seedlings. Although more expensive per plant, I've come to seek out seedlings as the way to plant flowers and shrubs. They seem to take off faster than both seeds or potted plants. Specimens arrive live in minimal (lightweight) but remarkably adequate packaging. I've experienced very low failure rates, and good growth rates.

My garden includes roses, blackberry and ivy vines, five kinds of fruit trees -- all plants that need constant pruning. So I carry my pruner on my belt. I probably use them a few dozen times every day. I have no idea why it took me so long to buy a pair of the best available -- Felco. It's got leverage! A handle shaped to the hand. If you prune a lot, you'll know immediately by the feel that these are the best. You can buy models for small hands, ergonomic models for gardeners with arthritis, left-handed ones. Forty dollars seemed like a lot for clippers but after decades of using inferior pruners I get pleasure every time I snip the Felcos.