Did you know you can automate watering your garden? Watch this for an explanation of my favorite gardening technology, drip irrigation!
Also, if you would like a full list of the materials I use to irrigate my garden, please message me through the HomeDabbler Facebook page anytime!
Kevin
P.S. – For more gardening info and ideas, visit my Yard & Garden page.
Tomatoes are unusual garden plants in many ways, including how they need to be planted.
If you buy tomato plants from a nursery to plant in your garden, there is a simple technique for planting them that will make them strong, keep them from flopping over so badly, and set them up for season-long success.
Watch this short video for the tip!
Kevin
P.S. – For more gardening info and ideas, visit my Yard & Garden page.
There is a lot of fascination about honey bees, for obvious reasons. Colony Collapse Disorder is now a household term and bees have become a poster child for the fragility of our ecosystem, food supply, and economy.
There are real issues around our favorite fuzzy flying friends, but there are also some misconceptions that I think increase our anxiety about honey bees unnecessarily.
I attended a lecture on back by the great University of Florida entomologist and beekeeper Dr. Jamie Ellis that schooled me on a few things I didn’t know about honey bees.
Did you know these?
Honey bees have become such a part of our culture, I thought they had always been here. Nuh-uh. Europeans brought them over in the early 1600’s.
There is evidence that honey bees existed in the Americas millions of years ago, but they went extinct. The adorable bumblers that make our honey today are relative carpetbaggers.
Like cows, chickens, dogs, and cats, honey bees have been domesticated by humans to exhibit certain traits, like docility and strong queens. In other words, we’ve engineered them just as much as we have our purse dogs.
A “wild” hive in America is simply an escaped hive from someone’s apiary.
Check out this cool map from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. It shows all the American crops that honey bees pollinate.
Check that pattern. All of the fruits and veggies that we love are grown largely on the perimeter of the country. These are the crops that would be most affected should we lose the bees altogether (and we won’t).
But why don’t bees pollinate crops in the middle of the country?
Because that is where the grains are grown, wheat especially. And grains are wind pollinated. They don’t require bugs, including honey bees, to reproduce.
Wheat = bread = what humans lived on for thousands of years before we developed cantaloupes.
If we lost all pollinators (honey bees aren’t the only ones by far), we would survive, because we could make bread. Our variety of flavorful food would suck and our agriculture economy would be a shambles, but we wouldn’t go extinct.
Dr. Ellis explains why:
I must have cut a million miles of grass in my years of business.
Over those years, I consistently saw four things that kept homeowners from getting pro-level results. They are all simple, easy to implement, and will actually save you work and money.
Nothing makes a yard look more polished than crisp, clean lines along the sidewalks and driveway. That can only be done by an edging tool. NOT A WEED EATER TURNED ON ITS SIDE. That is actually harder than using an edger.
Every major brand of lawn equipment sells interchangeable edger attachments. Spend $75, use an edger, and your lawn will instantly look better, guaranteed.
You are probably cutting your grass too short. Yes you are. You think you are helping but you aren’t. Cutting your grass too short stresses it out (which is why it looks dull right after you mow). The stress makes it hungrier, thirstier, and weaker.
One of my most popular videos describes the proper height at which to cut your grass. Give it a try and let me know the results.
You’re also probably watering your grass too much and too often. This hurts your lawn because 1) you wash away most of the fertilizer you just put on the grass, which means you have to fertilize more often ($$), and 2) you make your grass more susceptible to weak roots, bugs, and fungus.
Your grass is tougher than you think. I also did a video on how and when to water your grass. It may surprise you.
When you throw away grass clippings, you throw away free fertilizer. So you have to fertilize more. So you throw away money.
Some folks think clippings accumulate to create “thatch” in the grass that chokes it out. Not so. If you leave clippings on your lawn, they quickly decompose and release valuable nitrogen for the grass to use again. It’s easy recycling.
“But I don’t want to see the clippings on my lawn like baled hay,” you say. Agreed, but if you cut your grass at the proper height (see tip 2), and use a good mulching blade, you should see no clippings on your lawn after a mow.
The beautiful thing about these tips is that they mean less work and money for you, with better results.
How often does that happen?
Kevin
In a past life, I worked at a daycare. In the summer, we were always looking for activities to keep the kids busy. One was a u-pick blueberry farm down the road.
It was one of my favorites. Not only because I always liked gardening and growing and eating blueberries (though there was that). It was more to watch how the kids reacted.
We would off load them from the van and then gather them in front of this little shack where the proprietor, Mr. Dauphin, would hand each child a bucket and show them the rows that had the ripest berries that day. Then we would turn them loose.
The first time we did this, I was surprised by their reaction. Most just stood there, confused.
We had to take them by the hand, show them the berries, and pick a few for them before they were confident enough to try on their own.
I remember one boy in particular.
“You mean we can just pick them off and eat them?” he asked.
“Yup, give it a try.”
He did. And then we couldn’t stop him. More blueberries went into his belly than in the bucket. Which was alright by us.
I’ll never forget what he said next. With a mouth full of juicy berries, he said, “I didn’t know blueberries came from plants.”
What a beautiful moment.
I think too many kids don’t know where food comes from and don’t know how amazing it is fresh. U-pick farms are a great way to introduce the idea that food is precious, requires work to grow, that it is better the closer you are to its source, and that a fresh berry has more flavor than any junk food.
U-picks mend a valuable connection between us and our food that broke a few decades ago, when we stopped needing home gardens and livestock to live. The convenience is great, but our appreciation and care for our food went with it I’m afraid.
Take your family to a u-pick. It gets everyone outside together and busy with their hands, minds, mouths, and hearts.
Is there anything better?
Kevin
Bees bivouac when searching for a new home.
If you see a ball of bees like this in your yard this Spring – in your bushes or trees, on a fence post, etc. – leave it alone and please don’t try to destroy them. It’s called a bivouac.
A bivouac is an intermediate step in the process to bees take to find a new home. They leave their existing hive, bivouac while they search for new digs, then fly away once they find a suitable spot. It usually only takes a few hours, a day or two at the most.
When bees bivouac, they are extremely vulnerable and docile. Their only concern is finding a new hive location. They could not care less about you and, as mentioned, they will be gone soon. Unless you have an allergy, you can even get pretty close and look. It’s fascinating, if a little unnerving.
If they’re really just creeping you out, call a local beekeeper and they should gladly come remove and re-home them.
If you’re really a nerd for this stuff, there’s a great book on the science behind the bivouac called Honeybee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley.
To me, a honeybee bivouac is a wonder and a privilege to see. Enjoy it!
Kevin
** There is an infographic at the bottom of this post that summarizes this info. Take it for your own.
It’s hard to grow turf grass in the South, especially in Florida where I live. But there are some varieties that can do well here. They are:
You gotta know their strengths and weaknesses, though. Here are the ups and downs of the four most common turf grasses of the South.
Named for St. Augustine, Florida, this turf is a very tall grass that looks like soft shag carpet when healthy. Disney World uses it a lot, if that tells you anything.
My favorite all-round Southern grass, I must say. In my opinion, the most versatile and least fussy for homeowners who want turf but aren’t obsessed.
If you want a lawn that looks like a fairway, Bermuda is for you. It is tough as nails, but if you really want that tight golf course look, be prepared to spend time and money.
Zoysia is a fair-haired child right now in turf grass. It can be incredibly versatile and tough. When healthy, it is so tight that it crowds out most weeds on its own. It is a slow grower though.
Here’s the infographic. You should be able to download it. If not, let me know and I’ll get it to you. Enjoy!
Kevin
Step-by-step instructions, including location, technique, and follow-on care. Make sure your trees are happy from the start!
Kevin
There are only about a billion kinds of fertilizer – liquid, granular, slow release, quick release, etc. It can get confusing. Here are some basic tips on how to read the bags and what to use when.
Kevin
When you throw away paper towels or fallen leaves in the fall, you are throwing away free food for you yard and garden. You can use those same garbage cans to make beautiful compost right out your back door. Here’s how!
Kevin
