Grow Your Own Cooking Herbs

Growing  your own culinary herbs will bring you extra pleasure when serving your family and guests that special dish seasoned with the herbs.

Unlike spices, which are generally more pungent and add stronger flavor, herbs  add subtle flavor that account for the success of your mouth-watering dishes.

It is easy to achieve those results as any location with plenty of light, drainage and nutrition is adequate to growing cooking herbs. You may choose to grow them in outdoor garden spots, in patio containers, in greenhouses or you could even make an indoor herb garden using pots. A good idea for small areas is to plant the herbs in hanging baskets, which will add extra charm to the place.

Among the various cultivars, you may choose thyme, coriander, French lavender, bay laurel, basil, lemon verbena, dill, parsley, chives, sage and rosemary if the amount of sun they will get is south or westward . A nice combination of both upright and trailing herbs is attractive, so consider adding creeping thymes or oregano to your mini garden for a little eye appeal.

Northern and eastern exposures will provide more shade and are not as warm. Shade loving plants that will work nice here include parsley, spearmint, peppermint, lemon balm, chives, borage, and Cuban oregano.

To be successful with your herb garden, make sure 1) you choose a spot that gets at least 6 hours of sunlight per day, 2) there is good drainage and easy accessibility, and 3) the height and sizes of herbs are considered so that the largest ones will be placed at the back and the smallest ones in front of them.

Finally, remember to skirt your cooking herbs with a two to three-inch layer of mulch, which helps the soil to retain moisture besides keeping the neutral-to-slightly alkaline soil that most herbs prefer.

A Multicolored Garden

There is nothing more eye-catching than a multicolored garden.


Whether you choose to have flower-beds with only one flower type or with various ones, the resulting look will be just as gorgeous.


Take a look at these photos and get inspired to go outside and start creating your dream garden.

Begonias, Tulips, Daffodils - Bulbs For The Garden

Experts say that the secret to a beautiful garden is in the bulbs. One of the reasons that account for bulbs preference among more experienced gardeners is that bulbs naturally package all the essentials they need to flourish and grow. They are usually quite hardy and undemanding and can provide the most amazing shower of spring and summertime colors as a wide variety of colors and shapes can be produced. All that’s required is warming temperatures to bring the bulbs out of dormancy. 




You can easily find bulbs such as daffodil, crocus, hyacinth, tulip, and lily at your local lawn and garden center. However, if you want something rarer, you should 
 look for flowering bulbs with unique colors and smells like Guinevere, Blackmore, and Landon Begonias.

For spring-flowering bulbs, you will plant in fall while for summer-flowering 
bulbs, the ideal time to plant is spring. Most bulbs do well in pots or in planters, so your main concern should be the type of soil required and the depth and spacing necessary to give your new bulbs plenty of growing room. After following the necessary steps, your garden will be blooming with flowers that will catch everyone’s eyes. Enjoy!

Organic Rooting Hormone

While commercial rooting hormones may be more practical for obvious reasons, their organic homemade counterpart is certainly healthier and less expensive. You may obtain an efficient  organic rooting hormone by soaking the yellow-tipped shoots of a weeping willow tree in water or by making a tea from the willow bark. Make sure you will use the mixture after a 24-hour period. Another way of getting rooting hormone is by using honey dilluted in some water.

You may use the organic rooting hormone to propagate any plant with leaves such as African Violet, Geranium, and others that can be propagated with leaf cuttings.

 Your gardening experience will be far more rewarding if you pay special attention to and care for the environment.

Turn Your Garden Into an Outdoor Living-Room

How about having your living-room or dining-room and even your bedroom or your children's bedrooms flow right outdoors on to "floating" decks of wood, bricked terraces or lattice-roofed loggias? It sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? Your garden as an extension to your house, a terrace for family gatherings, a play space for young children. All of these will be just fine especially now that the weather is getting warmer and summertime is approaching.


The ideas are numerous and go from simple tricks such as glass walls to the "parasol" roof, which may extend some 4 feet from the walls of the house.

As for glass walls, you will want to use the same wall material inside as for a continuing wall on the terrace and the same material for the ceiling both inside and on the extended terrace eaves. This will give a sense of unity to the adjoined area.


Relate your terrace to the rest of your grounds with flowers and vines grown in pots, baskets and tubs, thus making it a delightful place for entertaining, sun-bathing and relaxing.


Don’t forget to have an electric outlet for lighting, portable radio, electric spit for your barbecue, etc installed, so you, your family and friends will make the most of this outdoor living-room in warm evenings as well.


The better you plan and the more you care for your terrace, the more your family will enjoy gathering there for a chat in lazy summer days.

How To Get A Great Lawn

A well-cared lawn makes a relaxing view as one feels like lying on it. How hard is it, though, to have a nice-looking lawn?

It's not at all difficult  as long as you follow some basic steps.

First of all, start with a solid plan. If you need to plant grass, do some research on the best seed for your area, where to buy it cheap, and when it's available. Depending on where you live, you'll plant either cool season or warm season grass.

Cool season grass, planted in northern areas, is usually best planted in early fall, but if you missed planting then, plant it in the spring when soil temperatures reach 50 F.

Warm season grass needs soil temps of 70F to thrive and is the choice for southern plantings. Don't make the mistake of thinking you can plant warm season grass in the upper Midwest. Warm season grasses are bred to thrive in southern climates and are not winter hardy in the north.

Secondly,  new grass plantings must be kept moist, but once grass reaches a height of three inches, you'll have to water it deeply once a week.

Now, if you already have a lawn, then this is the ideal time (spring) to aerate it  while it's still moist and before the spring rains are done.

Why is aerating your lawn important? Because in the springtime it gives microbes and other small life forms a breath of fresh air after winter. Aeration also makes new paths for drainage and keeps your lawn from becoming saturated.

The next tip is proper fertilization, which means you will avoid using chemicals. Instead, feed your soil with nutrient rich compost and let your lawn get its nutrients the natural way. 

The fifth tip for a great lawn is to mow your grass high. A 2 ½ to 3-inch high cut makes your lawn look fuller, feel softer, and helps keep it healthy. Taller grass shades pesky weed seeds and keeps them from getting established. In addition, a taller lawn is better able to absorb sunshine and better able to retain moisture, the two main contributors to a healthy lawn.

Last but not least, enjoy your lawn. Sit back, call your family and feel the bliss your well-cared yard will bring you.

How To Get Rid Of Ants - Without Poison

 Today's post - How To Get Rid Of Ants - will be useful if you are fighting ants in the house and if they are damaging your garden as well.

Ants, like any other insects, are not welcome in the house...not at all. Indeed, they are a nuisance because they bring a lot of bacteria into your kitchen counters, cupboards, and pantries. So you will want to keep them away, preventing them from entering your home.

There are several efficient homemade recipes, all poisonless, that you may apply to get rid of those insects, which are nice in Aesop's fable only.

One recipe to repel ants can be made by adding to an eight-ounce bottle of mild liquid soap one ounce each of citronella, pennyroyal, peppermint, cinnamon, rose and tea oil. Mix together and add three tablespoons of the mixture to two cups of water. Spray where ants are entering the house as well as garbage and recycling bins. You may also use this formula to wash the kitchen counters but, in this case, only use one-half tablespoon to two cups of water.

Another mixture to be used for repelling ants might be a solution of vinegar and water, which they find repulsive.

Also powdered cloves or red peppers sprinkled on the surface where ants are found work well as these insects are fastidious and won't come back to where those hot spices can get on their feet and antennae.

Last but not least, make sure the kitchen counter is free of food crumbs as this is what attracts ants. Keeping the place clean will certainly stop them from coming inside.