I’ve gotta admit: I’m a total tech-head.  My husband is a web designer and Apple specialist (we call him the iDoctor), and he’s quite the technophile.  Here at HQ, computers control the show: multiple synced wireless devices integrate with airport speakers on three floors, a Mac Mini runs the television, and there are hourly, automated backups.  We’ve got the gizmos and the whiz-bangs and the purty matching iphones.  Even our incomes are intimately tied to, and ultimately reliant upon, our laptops.  

And I’m happily high-tech in so many ways, but I’ve got to be honest: when I can successfully implement something like this – the lowest of low-tech solutions – it gets me giddier than geek at Macworld.

The Problem:

Enthusiastic pooches, in hot pursuit of city kitties (who in turn are stalking backyard hens) barrel through my raised beds and unwittingly trample my precious veggies.   I need to keep the canine crusaders at bay, without restricting my own access or corrupting my garden’s aesthetic. 

The Solution:

Hot pink string.

I love my boy-dogs dearly, but they’re not the brightest little bulbs.  The mere illusion of a barrier is quite enough to stop them dead in their tracks, and protect my delicate seedlings from certain doggy destruction.  See? 

I built a sort of ‘web wall’ here, but you could just as easily wrap the string around the corner posts of the planter box itself, containing just the bed.  There’s a ton of applications, and I think this technique could address all sorts of garden mischief.  Ahh, simplicity.  Who needs all them whiz-bang gizmos, anyway?!    (I do!, I do!)