How To Build A Back-ReLeaf Rake

A few years ago, as I was bending to scoop up fallen autumn leaves, it hit me: a sharp pain in my lower back, closely followed by the thought “There MUST be a better way to do this!” I was still hobbling stiffly a few days later when I used our pooper-scooper to clean up [...]

How to Rake Without Ache

Raking and bagging is a time-honored strategy for dealing with fallen autumn leaves. Despite the popularity of using leaf blowers and leaf vacuums (detailed here,) raking is still most people’s method of choice – because it works so well. Here are ways to ensure that your raking is as painless as possible this year. 1. [...]

Weapons of Mass Suction for Autumn Leaves

We’re headlong into fall and the leaves are piling up. What’s a Painless Gardener to do? One strategy is to bring in the big guns – leaf blowers or leaf vacuums – to arm yourself against strain and over-exertion. A Blow for Freedom The fellow who invented the leaf blower in the 1950s in California [...]

What’ll you do with all those leaves?

It’s time now for the next phase of painless autumn gardening – leaf collection. Depending on your surroundings, that can be a simple task or a sizable chore. I live in a state that is still 50% forest. No matter where you are in Arkansas, you’re not far from trees – and a LOT of [...]

Divide (and Multiply) and Conquer This Fall

As the days start cooling and getting shorter, Painless Gardeners have the perfect time to perform some important – and money-saving – garden math. Fall is a great season in which to divide many plants and transplant them, thus multiplying their presence in your garden with fairly painless effort. Not all garden plants are candidates [...]