The mail carrier is currently catching his breath after a hurried season of delivering holiday cards and packages. The many flower and seed catalogs will be the next thing showing up in our mailboxes courtesy of the post office. Starting in January, which is typical, now you can expect the catalogs...

Plants in the garden (and insects too) develop based on something called "Growing Degree Days" or GDD for short. This is an accumulation of heat units using a base of 50 degrees. For every degree above fifty goes towards the growing degree-days and plant development. Most of us do not follow GDD,...

Cold weather has already given peach trees in the home orchard a knock down punch for 2014. When temperatures reach -10 degrees, peach flower buds start to die. For every degree below -10 degrees, we lose another 10% of what was left until all the peach flower buds have been killed. The foliage...

Spring is coming, but may be a bit late compared to what we have gotten used. It is great that plants, insects and wildlife seem to know when it is right to show up. Insects will typically develop right along with their plant hosts and if they do not, always have a fall back plant that will support...

Bakers in the family and everyone else who enjoy the benefits really like the holidays. Lots of cookies, cakes and pies are baked during the holiday season. It is not the baked goods that will give households any problems, but what comes later with the leftover flour. Pantry pests are those tiny...

We are lucky here in the Midwest to be able to enjoy spring and summer bulbs alike. We plant spring bulbs in the fall and summer bulbs in the spring. We let spring bulbs overwinter in our garden beds and dig up Summer Bulbs to overwinter indoors. Our spring bulbs need a cold treatment to trigger...

The annual passage of winter to spring finally has begun. This last week has seen a big green change in the neighborhoods, and the smell of fresh-cut grass is in the air. There are a few easy guidelines to having a better-looking lawn without much more work. A longer grass blade means deeper...

The giving of holiday plants has become for many homes an annual family tradition. The one we think of most often of course is the poinsettia, yet mums, azaleas, cyclamen, and Christmas cactus are also given frequently. How well those holiday plants hold up and continue to give us enjoyment depends...

Gardeners would normally see damage from grubs or sod webworms this time of year. With our rainfall this summer, grub damage if they are even out there will be minimal. The winter weather took out a large percentage of the Japanese beetle grubs, so we have not seen that big population we have in...

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, including apple, cherry, peach, pear and plum. As we live in the northern portion of Illinois,...

With the exception of the last couple of days, the weather really has been moderating up and nighttime temperatures are getting gradually higher, all good things for gardening. We can soon expect to have the kind of weather that allows us to get some early spring yard work out of the way. While we...

There are some 8000 thousand ant species around and on occasion ants can become an annoyance in the home. Most often they are a bother in the spring of the year when soils outdoors begin to warm again. Right now with our soils next to the home being warmer yet, we can have ants from outside...

The snow continues to melt and rains have begun to rinse away the dirty grunge of winter. While we wait for last of the snow to go and the ground to warm up before we can plant even those cold and cool loving vegetables, we can do some garden strategizing. If you got the garden soil tested,...

We should have been expecting it, but no one is really ever ready for the first really cold weather we get. Our hardy trees, shrubs and evergreens or perennials weren't really impacted by low 30's and upper 30's that areas in the Fox Valley received. Gardeners do plant lots of tender flowers for...

All the rain and cooler weather has really started a change in the home landscape and vegetable garden.The fall and cooler season vegetables really like this weather and have been growing well. Those warm season vegetables like tomatoes and peppers begin to shut down as night time temperatures slow...

Just what do fruit tree experts mean when they say, "You need train your fruit tree?" Home orchardists need to train their trees for structure to encourage fruit production, to have a high-yielding home orchard, and to have a tree that can hold the fruit load without needing to prop or tie up the...

Now that the Holidays and Super bowl Sunday are over and pretty much our lives have returned to a more normal routine, there may be some insects beginning to show up in the pantry or kitchen. Leftover baking goods are usually the culprit and enough time has passed that we should be on the lookout...

Squirrels clearly know fall is approaching based on the calls coming into the Master Gardeners help desk telephone line and homeowners bringing in handfuls of small oak twigs. Squirrels will on an annual basis collect, hide, and eat a great many acorns in anticipation of winter, it is what they do...

Where you place your dwarf fruit tree home orchard, or even the one or two fruit trees you are going to grow, makes a big difference in how the fruit tree grows and performs. A major consideration is the soil in the area you are considering for your fruit trees. Fruit trees are no different than...

Lots of tree planting happened in the Fox Valley this past fall. The replanting has been pushed by the continuing tree population decline from the Emerald Ash borer, a boring insect that has now killed millions of ash trees in the Midwest. The other major reason homes have replanted trees has been...