Dear EarthTalk: What green-friendly lawn and garden pesticides are available today? I'm particularly interested in options that won't harm my cats.
-- Nancy Blanchard, via email

Pesticides have greatly boosted agricultural yields over the last half-century, so it is no wonder, given the commercial availability of many of these synthetic chemicals, that American homeowners apply 100 million pounds of the stuff each year to make their own gardens grow bigger and faster, too.