Jeff Bredenberg - How to Cheat at Gardening and Yard Work: Shameless Tricks for Growing Radically Simple Flowers, Veggies, Lawns, Landscaping, and More

The more we garden, the better we get at knowing what nature wants us to do.

G ARDEN COLUMNIST C HARLES F ENYVESI, IN HIS BOOK Trees

W ithin the first couple of pages here I am going to give you the full text of a tip that is so ingenious, so laborsaving, so cool, that for many people its easily worth the price of this book. How can I afford to do that? Gardeners are a caring, thoughtful bunch always ready to lend support, offer a helping hand, and pass along wisdom.

But first, heres a little background. I was talking on the phone the other day with Sam Jeffries, a horticulturist and radio personality. We were about to hang up when Sam dropped a bombshellone last gardening shortcut. (Yes, this one almost got away from me!)

Consider this scenario: A nursery truck has delivered to your front yard a young treea few hundred pounds of wood with burlap-wrapped rootball. You and your garden helpers have dug a planting hole in a carefully selected spot. Together, you wrestle that rootball into the hole. But here comes the quandary. You need to face the tree. That is, turn it until its best side is facing forward. This involves a combination of landscape design considerations, including an assessment of branch structure, open spaces, home architecture, surrounding vegetation, and sun exposure. You and your helpers again will have to awkwardly lift hundreds of pounds of wood and dirt, turning the trunk slowly until another person, directing the show, decides that the tree is facing the correct way. (And cover your ears if the director cant make up his or her mind.) Along the way, someone probably will snap off a branch or two in an effort to get a grip on the tree and turn it.

So heres Sams solution: Before you drop the tree into its planting hole, get your garden hose and fill the hole two-thirds of the way with water. A combination of buoyancy of the rootball and lubrication from the mud will make the tree easy to spin around in its planting hole, so you can quickly face the tree any way you wish. Also note that this technique gives the tree a nice start in its new home with a healthy drink of water.

Wow! I felt like I had just picked a gold coin up off the sidewalk. That tidbit has all of the elements of a superb tipits easily understood, it speaks to real people living their daily lives, there are no exotic materials involved, and there are no prissy rules to follow.

I hope you have a similar Wow! experience hundreds of times as you read this book. I have picked the brains of a horde of gardening and yard maintenance experts, identifying the clever little things they do when working in their own gardens and yards to save time, effort, money, and aggravation. I also asked them about their favorite tools and products and how they use them. (Speaking of products, I should say that its impossible to give specific advice without occasionally mentioning a brand name. When I mention a brand in this book, its because I believe in the productI dont accept any freebies from manufacturers.) And the products recommended in this book are organic, in keeping with Rodale tradition.

So pull on your garden gloves, slap on a broad-brimmed hat, and dive into How to Cheat at Gardening and Yard Work. Its jam-packed with ingenious shortcuts, tips, and tricks that are so sneaky that youll feel like youre cheating. At How to Cheat books, by the way, we use the word cheat in a benign sense. Theres nothing halfway, slipshod, or disreputable about the advice you will find here. And let me add that if any advice you encounter here makes you uneasy, fret notI dont want to be your guilty conscience. Just putter along to the next tip without another thought.

Now heres your invitation to join the How to Cheat movement. (Rallying cry: Simplicitywith Attitude.) Im sure that you have your own collection of clever tips and tricks, too. Feel free to share them by contacting me at www.howtocheatbooks.com or www.jeffbredenberg.com. Maybe Ill name you as a source in a future How to Cheat book!