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Getting Ready to Plant Your Winter Garden

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The colder months can be depressing at times, especially if you love being outside and working in the yard. But, for the times that the sun isn’t shining, you can still have a garden. Enter, the “Winter Garden”. You plant it in late summer/early fall, and get all your veggies and deliciousness around December and January. Lee at Lady Lee’s Home tells us how to determine when you should plant and what you should plant:

The first step in planing your winter garden is to know your winter. How cold is it? Maybe it is not that cold at all… If you live in South Florida, for example, you might not need to cover your crop at all, or you might need to cover it only at night. However, if you live in Michigan… well, I am not sure you can grow anything at all….

You can find your gardening zone (or hardiness zone) by entering your zip code here. Once you know it, check your first frost date… That is when you need to cover your crops.

Then, plant some cool weather veggies, like: Spinach, Green Onion, Broccoli, Radish, and Carrot.

Photo Credit: FishPickDiver 

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Mowing and Wild Onions

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While experts say they are a nuisance plant, I have to admit that when I am out and about and smell fresh cut grass mingled with the smell of wild onions it is just wonderful. I want to fill my lungs with the smell – perhaps it brings me back to my childhood!

But if you’re one who hates the smell, you can get rid of them.  American Lawns says,

While these plants can easily be pulled from wet soil, they usually leave bulbs in the ground and will re-appear in short time. In fact, the garlic produces many underground bulblets that are difficult to remove even when the plant is dug up by a spade. Mulching can help prevent the emergence of these plants in the garden beds.

Goodbye wild onions.

Photo by Cameron Jay Erens.

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Low Cost, Nice Yard

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I love summer but the yard work that piles up is just mind-numbing for someone who likes the feel of cool air on her face.  Outside you get to swat at gnats and mosquitoes and sweat flies.  Inside I sashay around with a watering  pitcher.  Outside sweat pours off my nose.  Inside I pop a bon bon in my mouth.

All kidding aside, there are some easy, low stress ways to keep your yard in good shape.  From xfinity.com, one way to beat the summer heat is not to bag your grass clippings,

Want to skip some stress when you mow? Leave the clipping bag in the garage, drop that rake and leave those clippings where they fall.

Research at the University of Connecticut has shown that you can cut your use of nitrous fertilizer by 50 percent or more, just by letting the grass clippings do the work for you. “It’s kind of a no-brainer, but people don’t do it,” Littlefield says. “They will decompose and the nutrients in them will return to the soil,” she says. “It’s recycling.”

Please do tell my neighbors this is why I don’t bag my clippings!

Photo by dan4th nicholas.

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Trim Trees Up

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When we first moved to our current house, the pine trees in the back yard were a hot mess.  In fact, it was clear the previous home owners paid no attention to keeping their yard trimmed back – even the hedge shrubs were about six feet tall.

The first thing we did was trimmed them to about 4 feet tall.  We didn’t want them so high that someone could hide behind them since our place is somewhat isolated.  After that all the trees were trimmed up so that we could walk underneath them without a branch hitting our heads.

Take a walk in a local park and observe … you’ll see that you can walk under trees and even magnolias, pines, evergreens, etc. can look gorgeous when their branches are not growing so that they touch the ground.  Though it’s a lot of hard work, trimming trees up will give your yard the “park-like” appearance.

For more information about the best time to trim, visit here.

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Maintaining Lawn Doesn’t Have to Cost a Lot

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Unless you live on a hundred acre farm (okay, maybe one acre is a lot, too!), it doesn’t have to cost a lot to maintain a lush, green lawn.  The frugal trader over at Million Dollar Journey offered some real tips on how much it would cost to maintain the lawn yourself rather than hiring a landscaper,

Here are some of the costs of the materials from the local hardware store (like Home Depot).  Note that the materials are for a standard 50×100 city lot (in NL).

  • Lime:  $5.99 per bag x 4 (2 applications, 2 bags per application) = $24
  • Fertilizer: $16 per application/bag (3 applications) = $48
  • Aeration: I own a 2 prong aeration tool, and only used in compacted soil areas: $20
  • Spreader: $35
  • Total: $127 first year, $72 per season after.

When he compared the price of a landscaper who charged about $400 per season, the $127 total price is pretty tempting.

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