Coming in for the Autumn ... What to Know About Different Creatures

As the warmth of this summer drifts into the past and the cool and crisp autumn winds bring changes, you'll probably be seeing a lot more activity of the many-legged kind inside and around your home.

Several arthropods (and even some mammals) may try to use your home as an escape from the pending winter. While many insects and arthropods die off in the fall, others overwinter to start new populations in the spring. Lucky for you, control is natural, cost effective and can ultimately save you from the sight of various creatures!

Oh! The Joys of Harvest

There's nothing better than a salad made from vegetables picked straight from the garden. It's one of my favorite summer meals and snacks -- the freshness of the veggies makes for a delightful and colorful meal. While this summer I've used various vegetables from other people's gardens (my dad's and farmer's markets, to be exact), I am never dissatisfied by the way it tastes.

With our 12 tomato plants Shaun and I have in our garden this year, we've only picked 4 or 5 so far -- but have many that are ripening at the same speed (anyone else have the word "salsa" come to mind?). Being the disorganized person that I am, I forgot to mark all my plants with which varieties they are so I'm "eating blind." The tomatoes we've had thus far are nice and sweet, juicy and kind of small.

Undeveloped Lakes: A Thing of Beauty

This year for our annual family trip, my parents, sister, brother-in-law, husband and I went down to Southern Indiana to see Patoka Lake. This almost-9,000 acre lake is beautiful. One of the reasons it's so beautiful is that people can't build on it. I'm sure if they could, they would, as all beautiful things it seems must be ruined by development.

We rented a pontoon and spent 9 hours cruising around the lake. Yes, there were lots of other boaters out there, but even that didn't take away from the pristine beauty of this beautifully clean lake.

Nowadays, when people talk about going to the lake it seems they're always speaking of a lake that has multi-million dollar cottages built on it and an overwhelming amount of people. To each their own, but to me, that's not relaxing AT ALL. I enjoy nature for what it is, not for what people want to abuse it for.

Basil -- The Powerhouse of Companion Planting

I didn't do very much companion planting this year in our first garden, but I'm pretty sure what we did do has paid off. Companion planting, if you're unfamiliar, is planting plants that benefit each other together. This isn't just for vegetable gardening, either, but this post is about the veggie garden.

For our first veggie garden at our home, we decided to plant basil and tomatoes together. Basil is a powerhouse in the garden, especially for tomatoes. It not only improves the growth and flavor, but also repels several pests of tomatoes (and other fruits and vegetables). Basil repels white fly, tomato hornworms, aphids, flies and mosquitoes.

Pruning Basics

Most of us have a basic understanding of what pruning is, but few of us know how to do it correctly. It's not simply shaping the plant to give you what you think is the best look; it's actually for helping to maintain the health of your shrubs and trees (which, coincidentally, adds to the aesthetics). Pruning correctly also stimulates new, fresh growth and the production of buds -- keeping your shrub looking new and young for many years.

Before you go shearing your shrubs into an unrecognizable box, get in tune with your plant and figure out a few things about it before you've actually damaged it.

What You'll Need to Know: 

1. Does your shrub bloom on previous or current year's growth? This refers to when your shrub sets its buds. A general (and by general, I mean most of the time, not all of the time) rule of thumb is that summer-flowering shrubs bloom on current year's growth and spring-flowering shrubs on previous year's growth
2. How thick are the branches I'll be cutting and which tools will I need?
3. Is any of it dead, diseased or injured?
4. Should I really prune it back to a different height or width or should it be moved to an area where it can grow as it should?

Fertilizer?

Fertilizer is often a term tossed around by gardeners and other people, but what is it? Why do you need it? Do you need it? Ah, the questions that arise when planning and planting a garden. Fertilizer supplements the needed nutrients that your soil may be lacking. It comes in various forms: Granules and liquids; man-made and organic; etc ...

When you look at a bag of fertilizer, you'll notice 3 numbers on the bag or box. These 3 numbers represent NITROGEN, PHOSPHOROUS and POTASSIUM, in that order. These 3 macronutrients are the ones more likely to be needed in your soil. The numbers represent what percentage of each is in the fertilizer you're getting. But what exactly do these nutrients do?