Moles and voles ruin lawns. Moles tunnel just below the surface and lift the turf in long ridges; voles eat plant roots and bulbs from underneath. Killing them works (sometimes) but most home gardeners want to repel them

Ultrasonic pest repellents claim to drive rodents and insects away with high-frequency sound that humans can’t hear. The science is mixed — peer-reviewed studies are skeptical — but in our own testing some units do r

A good outdoor bug zapper makes summer dinners on the patio possible. The cheap ones spark loudly enough to wake the neighbours, kill bees and butterflies along with the mosquitoes, and rust through after one season. Her

A mosquito trap won’t single-handedly clear your backyard, but combined with reducing breeding sites (any standing water) and a fan on the patio, it makes evening dinners workable through summer. The right trap targets f

Birds will strip a row of strawberries in an afternoon, then come back tomorrow for the blueberries. Bird netting is the only reliable barrier — but cheap netting tangles birds (which is awful, illegal in some Australi

Cucumbers grown vertically yield twice the fruit per square metre, ripen straighter, and sit cleanly off the soil so slugs and rot leave them alone. A purpose-built cucumber trellis kit makes the upgrade easy. We stopped