Best Deals on Grills, Lawn Care Tools, and More Outdoor Essentials

The Pi pizza oven is Solo Stove’s first foray into outdoor ovens, and it’s a winner. The oven is solid as a rock, thoughtfully designed, and turns out great pizzas every time it’s used. Our tester found it supremely easy to cook with, using either gas or charcoal, and it’s equally simple to switch between the two modes by installing the gas burner. The circular shape is naturally conducive to making a pizza, and our tester pointed out that it’s vastly preferable to the cylindrical or oblong designs you’ll find on many other ovens. 

The MegaMaster 720-0983 is one of the best budget gas grills in CR’s ratings. It does well across the board, from its evenness performance to its wide temperature range to its preheat performance. Even better, its ability to indirectly cook is top-rated. Unlike some of the other models we’ve tested, the MegaMaster 720-0982 doesn’t come with additional features, though.

The three-burner Napoleon Freestyle 365 F365DPGT delivers strong all-around performance. This small gas grill earns top scores for indirect cooking. Its temperature range and quick ability to preheat quickly and cook evenly are impressive as well. Napoleon, as a brand, received ace ratings for reliability and owner satisfaction for its gas grills in CR’s latest member surveys. Overall, it’s slightly sturdier than the Weber and quicker to heat, but you sacrifice some evenness across the cooking surface.

These flat skewers are a great choice for your grilling needs this year. Unlike round skewers, they keep even really tender foods (like scallops) from spinning, making it easy to turn each kebab. With this coupon, you can get them for a hefty discount.

This basket lets you keep all your lit charcoal on one side of the grill, so you can crisp a chicken leg or sear a steak on the side the coals are on, then move it to the side without the coals to cook through without burning.

The Meater+ meat thermometer is one of the most reliable digital thermometers. It’s easy to use, and given its top-notch accuracy, you won’t need guesswork to determine the doneness of brisket and other fleshy delights. It’s shaped like a thick ink pen with dual sensors—one to check the internal temperature and one for ambient temperature—and its size makes it better suited for girthier cuts. The Meater+ transmits temperature readings wirelessly to the companion smartphone app. This is the typical sale price.

ThermoPro’s SmartBT Meat Thermometer TP920 is one of the lower-priced leave-in two-probe wireless thermometers. It sends instant temperature readings to your smartphone via Bluetooth, offering excellent response time and accuracy. The easy-to-use app estimates the remaining cooking time for nearly all cuts and varieties of meat based on guidelines from the Department of Agriculture

With about 1 inch of insulation, the Coleman Chiller Cooler is great at maintaining a cool temperature. Its performance is on a par with the popular Yeti, and it costs $180 less. A large bail handle makes it easy to tote, but the hard-sided cooler does weigh almost 3 pounds before you even put anything in it.

The Grand Patio umbrella is one of the more expensive patio umbrellas we tested and one of the larger options in our ratings. It got above-average scores in CR’s tests for ease of use and assembly, but it’s a little less rigid than higher-scoring models.

NYC Plant Doctor Christopher Satch, who’s a professor of plant biology and pathology at The New York Botanical Garden, always starts with insecticidal soap when faced with unwelcome visitors in his garden. “It’s superior to neem [oil] in that it not only has a greater efficacy at killing insects due to its mode of action but also doesn’t hurt the plant like neem oil can,” Satch says. “Neem oil suffocates the plant over time by the oil clogging the plant pores.”

Satch recommends this insecticidal soap from Bonide, which can be used on shrubs, trees, flowers, ornamental greens, and garden vegetables.

A tool that Lorin Nielsen always finds herself reaching for is the Power Planter DIY Guru Auger, a drill bit tool. The head horticulturist at Epic Gardening—an online destination that offers advice and techniques for cultivating a garden—employs this 3-inch-wide auger bit for a hand drill and uses it to bore into hard-packed soil to easily plant dahlia bulbs or loosen the soil before transplanting in veggies. “I also find myself reaching for it to help blend amendments or mix together batches of potting mix in my garden cart,” Nielsen says.

This Black+Decker BEBL7000 leaf blower has a well-performing built-in vacuum function, making it easy to gather leaves into the included collection bag for composting or easy discarding. The bag connects using a flexible tube, making it easy to handle and maneuver. It’ll move leaves with very respectable efficiency (up to 250mph), and leave little impact on your ears and neighbors. You’ll have multiple speeds at your disposal to tackle any job.

The Ego LB7654 delivers all-star performance across the board, adept at loosening and sweeping, all in an easy-to-handle package despite weighing 9.9 pounds. In addition, this electric blower comes with a generous five-year warranty. As a brand, Ego battery handheld leaf blowers are very reliable and earn a top mark for owner satisfaction in our latest member surveys.

For a competitive price, the spartan Ego LM2114 performs commendably, with a respectable run time of almost an hour on one battery. Cutting evenness, noise, and handling are excellent, and it does a solid job of mulching, bagging, and side discharging. This 21-inch-wide push mower doesn’t have high wheels for better maneuvering and doesn’t include a second battery. The battery takes about an hour and a half to charge. It has a three-year warranty, which is fairly standard among the higher-rated battery push mowers in our ratings. Ego battery mower predicted reliability is very good, and owner satisfaction is excellent.

Your neighbors will thank you for using an Ego LM2135 because it’s very quiet at 25 feet away and at the ear of the user. While this unit is often a bit expensive as far as push mowers go, its performance rates high for mulching, cut evenness, and handling. It also earns nearly as impressive ratings in bagging and side discharging. Run time is as long as 50 minutes, enough to cover about a quarter of an acre in one go. What’s more, the battery can be fully charged in just over an hour.

Despite its relatively low price, this 40-volt battery-powered chainsaw from Skil earned high marks for cutting and a top score for safety. It also did well in handling and ease of use. This model was selling for $149 last week at a few retailers, including Amazon and Lowe’s.

The Brightech Pro Solar Powered Outdoor String Lights are the best in class in our tests, with above-average marks for light duration and a top score for ease of use. Long and widely spaced, these lights provide flexibility. You can run the strand as is for more subtle lighting or double up the cord to concentrate more of the light in a tighter space. Each of its 12 separate Edison-style oval-shaped bulbs has 24 LEDs, resulting in exceptionally bright light. The lights can’t be manually charged, but they do have replaceable batteries and an on/off button to preserve power.

It’s hard to contend with the value offered by the Gigalumi Grid Solar Pathway Lights, especially at this new low price. Their cost is lower (on a per-light basis) than just about any other path light we’ve seen, and yet they earn solid marks for both light duration and ease of use. The light cast comes from a single LED in each of the lights—casting a dimmer glow than the other products we tested.

That may not be a dealbreaker if you’ve got supplemental lighting elsewhere or if you’re using these strictly to create ambience. There’s a single setting, an on/off button, and a removable battery, but the lights can’t be charged or angled.