The absolutely best place to start for your flower and vegetable seeds this spring is at the seed packet itself. That is just the start of what will be a several week adventure.
Based on the date you expect to eventually plant outside, the information on the seed packet can guide you when you need...
Late February to early March is just about the right timing for household and houseplant insects to show up. Over-wintering outdoor insects in the home become indoor household nuisance pests, and new insects may just be waking up. Plus, houseplants that survived the move in from the patio last fall...
Home orchardists struggle from spring through the summer to make timely cover sprays, hoping to harvest good quality fruit. Several practices can help you grow fruits that are the envy of the neighborhood.
Apples may be the hardest of the tree fruits to manage, as there are a couple of diseases...
When talking about flower buds on our fruit trees and flowering ornamental plants, a couple of plants come to mind.
The first is the peach tree. Like other fruit trees, peaches produce flower buds every year. It is just a gamble whether or not we have severe winter temperatures during the winter....
About this time of year, Extension starts getting calls and emails asking about the right pollinators for the home orchard since it is time to order from the fruit tree catalogs. You may recall that we touched on this a few weeks back, but let's really dive in this time.
Catalogs provide a great...
Back in December, this column talked about doing our best to prevent an outbreak of any one of several kinds of pantry pests in the home. Some of what was shared included sealing bulk amounts of dry pet foods, including the birdseed used all winter for outdoor feathered friends, and limiting,...
When we have very cold weather, it is great to see snow come along with it, for our garden plants at least. Snow cover provides insulation from the drying winter sun and the extreme air temperatures. A good snow cover protects above ground plant parts and helps them survive the winter.
In parts of...
January is not too early to start to plan for a new home orchard or to consider replacements for aging fruit trees in an existing orchard. There are several different kinds of fruit trees to consider – apple, cherry, peach, pear, and plum.
As we live in the northern portion of Illinois, apple is...
Garden catalogs began to show up in early January and will continue for the few weeks. Each picture looks better than the next and promises to be bigger, better, than last year. There may be plenty of phrases or words that are unfamiliar or perhaps you have seen them before and never went far...
The end-of-year sales and holiday greetings have barely ceased and already the gardening catalogs have begun to arrive in your mailbox and inbox.
Some catalogs are still pretty specific, vegetables or flowers, but not both. More and more catalogs today are now offering a bit of everything like the...
