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...

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...

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...

Despite our best intentions to create healthy gardens and landscapes, sometimes we wind up introducing a material that has potential to affect environmental or human health. Do you know if you have any in your yard? Let's look at a material commonly found in the landscape and its potential impact...

  Let it be known that in my family I hold the record for number of mosquito bites at one time. While on a vacation in the coastal swamps of Georgia (yes I said 'vacation'), I racked up over 100 mosquito bites. So what makes a person more attractive to mosquitoes than others? Here are a few...

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 Rot, rot, rot. With all this rain landscapes and gardens have been suffering from saturated root zones. Here's a comparison of beebalm in...

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 The rains have ceased and the lawn and garden beds are drying out. It is almost the end of July and I have yet to water a single plant this season, even...

Fall is the time to renovate our cool-season lawns following are recommendations (aka lawn chores) for this late-summer to early fall growing season. First analyze your soil. If your soil has become compacted or is very heavy clay, it is best to aerate prior to seeding. Hollow tine aerators work...

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...

Things sure do seem to be getting clean outside. Not clean in the ordinary sense of course, but in terms of weeds. Our yards are cleaner, farms are cleaner. For the past century humans have spent a lot of energy, time and money on cleaning up the landscape. It has led to increased farm yields, and...

My son loves birds. And it all started with a walk on a cold, snowy day during the winter of 2013-2014. As we walked, a sound caught his attention. It was something he never heard before. It was the rat-a-tat pecking of a woodpecker. He looked around excitedly trying to pinpoint where the sound...

Despite its drab name, the mourning cloak butterfly might be one of spring's earliest flowers. My two sons and I spotted one on a walk along the woods mid-March in 2015. It was resting upside-down sipping away at tree sap along with a flurry of ants. As the butterfly fed, the warm late-winter sun...

These days it seems like salsa is everywhere. Americans have come to love this condiment as it tends to show up on the table for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Nothing is better than fresh salsa. Better yet, the ingredients used to make salsa are incredibly universal and can be grown in your backyard...

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...

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...