Looking for a way to stop pesky bugs from destroying your hard work this growing season? Plastic bottles (emptied of their contents, of course) make terrific traps for all kinds of pests. Just coat the bottles with corn syrup or a commercial stick-um like Tanglefoot®. Then either hang them from trees or stick them upside down on stakes that you’ve pounded into the ground among your precious plants. You can tempt garden troublemakers to your traps by adding color to the bottles, too—most bugs zero in on yellow, but here are a few exceptions to the rule:

• Apple maggots adore red.
• Tarnished plant bugs, flea beetles, and rose chafers go for white.
• Thrips make a beeline to blue.