If I may steal a line from Doug Tallamy- For decades the prevailing notion of developers is that humans are here, therefore nature needs to be elsewhere. In our minds we always think of nature as elsewhere, but certainly not in our very own yards. With the expansion of housing and commercial...
It sounds improbable. How can one have too many earthworms? Such is the case for a property owner in Henderson County. A recent phone call led me on my first investigation to discourage earthworms, or in this case night crawlers (or 'dew worms' from a fisherman's vernacular). The yard in question...
It's always a good idea to have a plan before you start digging up your yard. Sometimes a location seems like the perfect site for a garden, until you start digging and find the soil is like concrete. Or you start growing and realize the water supply is way out of reach. Now you're hauling buckets...
After a series of excessive rain events, some gardeners may find their beloved produce underwater. In this situation a key question surfaces: Are my vegetables safe to eat? Floodwaters that are runoff or overflow from streams, rivers, lakes, roadways, and agricultural fields are likely to be...
So far the winter of 2015-2016 has been unseasonably mild. Many gardeners speculate what this means for our next growing season and the pest insects we love to hate. The past two winters beheld a new term for most of us living in North America – polar vortex. Residents in Central Illinois saw first...
Growing up, a family tradition was going out to the Christmas tree farm to find that perfect tree. As a child it was fun going out to pick our tree, cut it and then watch it hauled to the barn on a sled, shook for all its worth to get the dead needles out, and finally bundled up on our car ready...
Thoughts on Growing Food on Mars Inspired by the book "The Martian", by Andy Weir.Humans are a curious species. We are born to question and explore all that lies before us. Space is one of those frontiers that have attracted many humans ever since our eyes wandered upward to ponder...
You're walking through your lawn. You notice some discoloration in patches, but it doesn't seem too alarming. After walking in your front door you begin to slip off your shoes and notice they've been turned an orange-red color. You'd swear it looked like your shoes were rusted-over. This above...
What's going on in the garden this week? Here is a snapshot of observations and questions coming into the Extension office. Out in the Garden Here in Illinois the rains stopped early July and have been sparse ever since. Gardens have needed supplemental water. With the abundance and then lack of...
A co-worker is headed out on vacation this week and asked me to babysit her twenty babies. By babies I mean monarch caterpillars. I have built rearing cages, taken classes, learned all about the lifecycle of the monarch butterfly, but I have never raised them before. I've gone back to the materials...
