Use Newspaper as Mulch

We’ve all experienced it. One day the garden is looking just fine and all the weeds are under control, and the next day, you turn around and your neat rows of vegetables or flowers are suddenly crowded with big, hulking weeds. You get the garden off to a good start, but in the heat of summer, after a long day at work, you just don’t want to break your back trying to pull or hoe all those weeds.

Fear not. Here’s a way you can knock those weeds down and keep them down. This method doesn’t involve chemicals that might harm your produce, damage your plants, or cause health problems for your family. It’s also cheap and easy. In fact, you don’t even have to dig out the weeds.

What you need are a lot of large newspapers (national papers like The New York Times or The Washington Post work great), as well as some organic mulching materials like grass clippings, pine bark, chopped-up leaves, straw, etc. If you don’t have any newspapers, go to your local library and ask for any large newspapers they have in their recycle bin. They’ll load you up.

If the weeds are really tall, walk over them to lay them down against the ground. Then open up a section of the newspaper and place it right on top of the weeds. Each large rectangle of newspaper should be about 10 pages thick. Place newspapers over all the weeds, overlapping the edges so that light (and weeds) can’t get through. As you do this, throw some mulch down to keep the newspapers from blowing around, especially on windy days.

If your garden is crowded with crops, leave the papers folded. You also can tear the newspapers to slide them around the stems of your plants (and this is actually helpful in keeping cutworms at bay). Don’t use glossy pages in the garden, though — they are slow to break down and the ink may contain some mild toxins.

When the ground is covered with newspapers, add a nice, thick layer of mulch — about three
inches — over the papers so the next windstorm won’t pull the pages up.
That’s it! You’re done.

This job will take approximately one to several hours, depending on the size of your garden. The really nice thing about newspaper mulching is that when all the newspapers are down with the mulch on top, the garden looks incredibly tidy and clean — and it will stay that way for months.

Occasionally a tough perennial weed might poke through the mulch, but if and when that happens, move some papers out of the way just a little bit, dig out the weed, cover up the space with an extra square of newspaper, and cover with mulch again.

The newspaper mulch will not only keep the weeds down, it will also fertilize the soil, cool the roots of the plants in the summer heat, add organic material to the soil, and save water. Earthworms will be active underneath the mulch, tilling the ground for you and adding worm castings, which is pure gold for plants.

Newspaper mulch is great for the garden — and for the gardener.

Fun Turkey Facts

The average weight of a turkey purchased at Thanksgiving is 15 pounds.

The heaviest turkey ever raised was 86 pounds, about the size of a large dog.

A 15 pound turkey usually has about 70 percent white meat and 30 percent dark meat.

The five most popular ways to serve leftover turkey is as a sandwich, in stew,
chili or soup, casseroles and as a burger.

Turkey has more protein than chicken or beef.

Turkeys will have 3,500 feathers at maturity.

Male turkeys gobble. Hens do not. They make a clucking noise.

Commercially raised turkeys cannot fly.

Turkeys have heart attacks. The United States Air Force was doing test runs and breaking the sound barrier. Nearby turkeys dropped dead with heart attacks.

A large group of turkeys is called a flock.

Turkeys have poor night vision.

It takes 75-80 pounds of feed to raise a 30 pound tom turkey.

A 16-week-old turkey is called a fryer. A five to seven month old turkey is called a young roaster.

Preparing for Winter

When do my doors need weatherstripping?

Let’s look at an example. If you have a pair of 6' 8" exterior doors in your home that don’t have weatherstripping, you can easily have an opening of ¼" all along the edge where the doors meet. This ¼" gap adds up to a 20-square-inch opening to the outside. If you saw a hole this big in your wall, wouldn’t you want it fixed?

Weatherstripping around exterior doors can be checked with a flashlight. Outside the closed door, move the flashlight slowly around the door edge. If a helper inside the house can see light shining in, weatherstripping is needed.

Use quality weatherstripping that will last multiple years and that can be securely attached. Weatherstripping comes in various thicknesses, widths, and materials. Examples of materials and forms include spring or V metal, tubular gasket, foam-edge wood strips. Sponge and foam tape or felt are generally not as durable as silicone, metal, or vinyl weatherstripping.

Can I seal a gap under my door without replacing the door?

Yes. Door sweeps, thresholds, and door shoes are good ways to seal gaps under exterior doors. A door sweep (a strip of metal often with a flexible rubber or plastic edge), can be used on a door with no threshold. The sweep is connected to the door bottom, either inside or outside, depending on how the door moves. A gasket threshold replaces an existing threshold and can be attached to the floor directly under the door. This type of gasket wears quickly in high traffic areas. Door shoes have rubber or plastic gaskets set into a metal bracket. This shoe is affixed to the door bottom, and can be used with any threshold not worn in the middle. In addition, a draft stopper can be made out of fabric and sand into long tube to place in front of the door to stop drafts

Acorns in Abundance

Oak trees across Texas are producing huge crops of acorns. Oak trees tend to produce one bumper crop every two to seven years. The more common explanation for this year’s heavy crop is the stress brought on by last year’s drought conditions and other environmental conditions.

Most authorities indicate the reason is more complicated than drought conditions alone. Whatever factors influence a heavy acorn production year, they were at play this year as oaks in other regions of the U.S. (Including the New England area), are producing exceptional loads of acorns.

Yes, walking barefoot in a lawn populated with an overabundance of acorns would be challenging. My neighbor knows the shade provided by his oak trees during the heat of a warm summer more than offset an occasional nuisance such as acorns on the driveway. Most of us have appreciated the cooler temperature and gentle, refreshing breeze under a large shade tree on an otherwise hot, still day.

Trees in the landscape provide numerous aesthetic, environmental, and economic benefits, including increasing the value of a home and reducing air conditioning costs.

The value of trees in the home landscape reminds me of a story about two neighbors. A young father was raking leaves in his yard when he noticed his retired neighbor digging a hole. When asked what he was doing, the elderly gentleman told him he was planting a tree.

The young neighbor just smiled and chuckled to himself as he asked, “Why are you doing that? That tree won’t be fully grown for 20 or 30 years, and you’ll probably never benefit from it.”

To that the elderly gentleman told his neighbor, “I know that, but aren’t you glad that someone planted that tree in your front yard years ago so that you could enjoy its shade and so your kids can climb its stately limbs?” A sobering perspective indeed.

Whether you are putting in new trees or caring for existing trees, it’s worth the time and effort to provide the proper management needed to produce healthy, vigorous growing trees.

Watch Out For Critters

Hungry hoards of mosquitoes, crickets, grasshoppers and other assorted pests-Texans have pretty much seen them all this summer, but will the onslaught stop once cooler weather hits?

The bugs of summer will subside, but a new slate is ready and willing to move right in with you. Usually during drought conditions or when the weather begins to get cooler insects and other arthropods like spiders and scorpions will move indoors. In the case of drought, they are often searching for water, and with cooler temperatures, like us, they want a cozy place to stay.

Simply keeping pests out of the house in the first place is the best and easiest way to keep your family safe. The following tips help to accomplish that:

– Prune trees and shrubs so they do not touch or overhang the house.
– Don’t stack firewood or anything else against the house.
– Weather strip doors and windows, especially if you see daylight around them.
– Block weep holes in homes with brick or stone facades using steel wool or copper mesh
   where rusting steel wool stains could be unsightly.

– Use caulk or expanding foam to fill cracks and crevices on the outside of the home and around pipe and wire penetrations.

– Keep window screens in good repair.
– Use stainless steel mesh to block attic access points.

As with any unwanted intruder, the trouble starts once they enter your home.

Food herds the harvest crew like cattle

Food provides the landmarks on the 14-hour harvest day journey. It’s something to look forward to. It also provides energy to stay the course. Love in a Styrofoam take-out container!

A hot meal will stop a working tractor or combine almost as quickly as a breakdown. Proof lies in the power of opening the van’s hatchback at supper-time. The harvest crew, a.k.a. relatives and farm help, start to gather like Grandpa’s cattle when he drives into the pasture with his pickup truck. They simply want a taste of what you brought to eat. Cattle expect a bucket of grain. The harvest crew desires a hot, home-cooked meal or the occasional take-out from town.

Sometimes traditions change and new lifestyles intervene. Yet food delivery to the working crew in the field remains one that some farm families like mine still preserve. Even this tradition has evolved with the introduction of warehouse club memberships and Styrofoam take-out containers.

A field-side picnic seems warm and fuzzy, and it really is in the moment.  But the daily process to plan, prepare and deliver proves a downright hassle sometimes, even for a farm woman who works from home. Often, her roles have heightened with farm records and marketing in addition to traditional farm and home duties.

The nightly preparation and delivery of a half dozen meals taxes the pantry and the mental menu for the farm wife.. She looks for variety within the parameters of what the crew members will eat. Even then, you have a few short orders, such as warming green beans for the broccoli haters. She knows whether they like mustard or mayo, whether they’ll even put a spoon in yogurt or cottage cheese or need a side of ketchup with their peas.

At the start of harvest, I watched a farm woman at work. Without asking, I quickly identified that the visibly stressed lady in front of me was taking food to the field. The giveaways: The down-to-earth appearance. Open insulated containers on the table near the checkout. And a multiple sandwich order complicated by her mental recollection of several people’s topping preferences. Usually only wives know a man’s relationship with certain foods. Unless you’re a farm woman!  Then you know it for all the farm employees and sometimes their kids.

I confirmed her motive at the beverage station and sympathized. She mentioned her preference to drive a tractor or grain truck. The task seemed simpler and focused. And she hoped no unannounced kids were tagging along in the field that day. Or she would be without a sandwich.

Multiply Your Plants

Propagation is a means of multiplying a plant into many more of the same type. The most common method is by collecting and planting seeds. This is referred to as sexual propagation since the pollen from one plant pollinates the female flower structures of the same plant or another plant of the same species thus creating a living seed.

Another means of propagation called asexual because no pollination is involved, but instead a section of one plant is removed and rooted to start a new plant. Examples of asexual propagation are stem cuttings, leaf bud cuttings, air layering, and tissue culture.

Grafting and budding involve removing a section from one plant and attaching it to another. This removed plant section is called a bud or scion and the plant onto which it is placed is referred to as the rootstock. The scion or bud grows to form the main structure of the new plant. It is chosen because it possesses certain desirable characteristics such as fruit size or quality, bloom size or color, or foliage qualities. The rootstock is often chosen for its ability to tolerate specific soil characteristics, resist disease or insect problems, or give a dwarfing effect to the growth of the scion.

Seed propagation usually results in a new plant that is similar but not identical to the parent plant(s). With asexual propagation the offspring is identical to the parent plant. The juvenile stage which seedlings go through before they are mature enough to bloom or bear fruit is bypassed with cuttings and grafting which is another desirable effect.

While propagation sounds complicated or difficult it is in fact quite simple. There are a number of different techniques which gardeners can use to propagate various plants. This section of the website provides how to information on how to multiply your plants. I must warn you though that propagation is addictive. You will soon find yourself driving through the neighborhood eyeing certain plants that you would like to propagate for your own landscape. Gardening friends will learn to "frisk" your pockets for seeds and cuttings before you leave after a visit to their landscape!

I should point out before turning you loose on the gardening world with this newfound knowledge and skill that some plant materials are patented and may not be propagated and sold without permission and payment of royalty fees to the owner