OK, we were bad last fall--we left all the leaves down in our yard until spring. Our lawnmower was broken so my husband couldn't mow them over like he did last year, and I had a hard time getting out to rake with a crawling 8-month-old (never did figure out a good way to take her out with me). Now black widow spiders have taken over the back of my garden. I guess I've made a perfect habitat for them with a fence for structure and leaves for cover. Obviously I have to get rid of them so my now-15-month-old daughter and I can safely garden. We live in Virginia, and almost everyone I ask around here says they've never seen one, let alone the 20+ that are infesting my garden. Does anyone have any ideas for safely getting rid of these spiders? I'm hoping maybe folks who live in areas where they're more common might have some advice for me.

So far I'm clearing the leaves to get rid of their cover and working on killing the spiders. I take my rake and pull the leaves out of the webs one by one until I find a spider, then spray it with a permethrin-based spray and smash it with a hoe. The main problem with this approach is time--it's very tedious, if effective, and I can only do it when my daughter is napping and not outside with me.