You may find these gardening gizmos useful when working in the yard and garden -- and once you try some of them, you may feel you can't live without them. A sheet of heavy-gauge plastic is a time-saver, a back-saver and on windy days, a sanity-saver when you're raking leaves. Just roll up the plastic sheet, and stuff it into a trash bag. It unrolls slightly to keep the bag open and upright so you can stuff it full of leaves. When you finish filling the bag, lift the plastic sheet out by its handles, and the bag is ready to close. Once you've filled the bag with leaves, dump them in the compost pile -- don't throw them away. A pecan picker-upper is a back-saver as well. The manufacturer says it's good for picking up other kinds of nuts as well as golf balls, small stones, and so on. You roll it around on the ground, and the nuts get caught in the spring. Release the contents by loosening the spring. A watering advisor (figure A) can help you conserve water in the garden. Resembling a rain gauge, this device is filled with water and placed in the lawn or in a flower or vegetable garden. Water evaporates from the advisor at the same rate as from healthy turf grass or plants. Check the gauge periodically to determine when to water. Most plants need at least 1" of water a week, so as soon as the water level drops 1", you know it's time to water. You can mark the date on which you last watered by rotating a scale on top of the unit. A water bubbler (figure B) is another water saver. It converts a high-pressure stream of water into a gentle flow, allowing the soil at the base of a plant to absorb water slowly and preventing wasteful runoff. Another gizmo redirects rainwater and prevents it from eroding your garden. When attached to a gutter downspout, the perforated plastic unrolls automatically during rainfall and gently waters nearby plants. When the rain stops, it rolls back up. If you grow container plants but tire of watering them, consider a gadget that waters them automatically (figure C). A contoured tank hangs on the side of practically any pot, and a watering head goes into the soil. As the soil dries, a tube draws water from the tank and into the pot so the soil stays evenly moist for up to three weeks. The Apex Grip creates a support system for plants grown vertically. To use it, push a dowel or a bamboo cane into each of six holes, for instant support. The grip accommodates poles up to roughly 3/4" in diameter and of any length. Once the unit is assembled, push the poles into the ground, and plant at the base of each one. To control birds, try putting out strips of reflective tape (figure D). When sunlight hits the tape, the reflection startles birds and sends them flying elsewhere. For best results, install the tape on stakes above crops prone to damage, spaced roughly 30' apart. Remove the tape when crops ripen: in time, birds will get used to the reflection. A dunk (figure E) is highly effective for controlling mosquitoes in water gardens, birdbaths, gutters or anywhere else water accumulates. The active ingredient in the product is a live bacterium that kills mosquito larvae without harming fish or birds. One dunk lasts 30 days and treats an area as large as 100 square feet. To treat smaller areas, break dunks into smaller pieces. You can convert plastic containers (milk, motor oil, antifreeze and detergent bottles) into a number of handy devices, using one of several fittings that screw onto them. With the right fitting, you can turn a container into a pouring spout, a funnel or a sprinkler. You can find these garden gizmos at your local nursery, home-and-garden center or hardware store for less than $20 each.
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