Know How, Know More 2019

Most of us gardeners are itching to get gardening this time of year, which is why Extension offers lots of great programming in the winter to get gardeners excited and inspired! Next up on our gardening calendar is our new From the Ground Up program coming up at Allerton Park and...

I once had a squirrel enter my house from an upstairs window, which promptly ran downstairs to finish my breakfast of eggs and toast on the dining room table. My dog and two cats watched from the sidelines incredulously; no doubt asking themselves why they didn't get invited to...

Kokedama String Gardens Get creative with your houseplant displays this winter and try hanging a few plants in the window to create a string garden. The term String Gardening is a term that has become attached to a style of Japanese bonsai known as kokedama, which literally means...

The spring of 2019 has gone down in the record books as being one of the wettest in Illinois history. According a recent article by the Illinois State Climatologist's office, "As it stands now, spring 2019 will rank...

Farmer's market season has kicked off in many communities for the season.  We have a few tips for keeping your foods safe and at good quality.   Before Set your alarm. Getting to the market early means you will likely get the amount and quality of produce you want...

Celery is one of the foods that tends to go limp in my refrigerator. I do not use celery as much in recipes as, say, onions or carrots. I never enjoy throwing out the limp celery, and set out to find a way to save as much as I could of my purchase. Try 1: Make lots of celery recipes in...

Every summer, gardens at home are hit or miss on what grows and what doesn't. Sometimes a plant just grows and grows! This was the case for the gardener who brought me multiple bunches of hot peppers – jalapeños, poblanos, and lots of small red hot peppers. Just for fun, I decided to string and...

A fellow Illinois Extension colleague shared a blog last year titled "Kitchen Scrap Gardening." You might have heard of these home kitchen experiments regrowing foods from leftover seeds, stems, and scraps. Using the stem leftover from my last post on freezing...

On the heels of regrowing celery, I was inspired to regrow another veggie: green onions. For anyone looking for a fast return on investment, these green onions regrew quick! A quick cut, a quick soak, and a quick planting in soil has yielded weeks of regrowth on green onions, with no stopping yet...