If you like to garden, be careful in extreme heat. Here are seven sensible tips to keep in mind during hot and humid weather. Whether you like it hot or not, it is important to take care while working outside.

Do your heaviest work early in the morning, as early in the day as possible, or in the evening. It’s good for both you and the plants. Take a cue from South American and Mediterranean countries where it is siesta time from 11 to 2 in the afternoon. Sit in the shade, relax, and enjoy your garden, listen to the birds, and watch the butterflies. The weeds will still be there waiting for you once the day cools down.

Slow down and pace yourself. Take frequent breaks. It’s okay if you can’t get as much done during a hot, muggy day as you can on a cooler day!

Keep hydrated. Drink plenty of cool water before, during, and after working outside. Don’t wait until you are thirsty to drink. And no alcohol. It just dehydrates you. Get in the habit of bringing a water bottle with you if needed. Drink in small sips to avoid getting waterlogged. If you’re feeling dehydrated, consider a sports beverage that will place the salt you’re sweating out.

Don’t forget the sunscreen! Apply the sunscreen 30 minutes before going outdoors. (I apply when I get up in the morning as part of my routine.) You may have to reapply it after sweating.

Wear a hat—a proper sun hat shades not only your face but your ears and neck as well. Wear light-colored clothes to reflect sunshine, too.

Tie a wet bandanna around your neck or even drape a wet cotton dish towel over the nape of your neck. If you have considered buying one of the fancy cooling towels, save your money. Consumer Reports tested several along with an ordinary kitchen towel (smooth, not terry cloth) and found that they only varied by about 2 degrees. Better yet, pop the wet bandanna or towel into the fridge or freezer for a while.

Go inside if you feel yourself getting overheated or breathing too heavily. Take a cool shower or spray yourself with the garden hose!

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Wildlife are undomesticated animals living in nature. Wildlife has countless benefits for the ecosystem and for our health and well-being, including pollinating our food, controlling pests, and being a source of beauty and inspiration. Seeing wildlife while outside can be a fun and educational experience, and spending time outside in nature can have health benefits. However, it is important to know how to interact with wildlife safely to reduce your risk for certain injuries or illnesses. This also helps keep wildlife safe and healthy.

Wildlife may look cute or seem friendly, but they should always be enjoyed from a distance. Getting too close to wildlife may cause some animals to abandon their young, stop eating, or injure people or pets out of fear. Wildlife can also get sick from or have diseases that are harmful to people and pets. People and pets can spread diseases to wildlife, too. The best ways to keep yourself, your pets, and wildlife health are to keep a safe distance and wash your hands after being outdoors. Also, wildlife should never be kept as pets.

Do

• Wash your hands after returning from outdoor adventures.
• Observe wildlife from a distance.
• Leave orphaned animals alone. Often the parents are close by and will return for their young.
• Use insect repellent while outside and use flea and tick prevention for your pet.
• Keep pets on a leash when they’re in unfenced areas.
• Call animal control or a wildlife rehabilitation center if you’re concerned about a wild animal.

Don’t

• Touch or approach wild animals, even if they look friendly or hurt. If an animal changes its behavior, you’re too close!
• Feed wildlife, especially by hand (feeding songbirds in your yard is okay).
• Bring wild animals into your home.
• Let pets interact with wild animals.
• Leave trash around your home or garbage bins open.

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There’s nothing quite like the taste of homegrown tomatoes.  But they aren’t a plant that you can just leave to grow. Some knowledge and care is required in order to avoid common pitfalls. We’ll run through 10 tips and tricks for trouble-free tomatoes.

1. Choose the Right Variety

It may seem obvious, but the varieties you grow need to be suited to your climate. Choose cool-climate varieties for regions with shorter growing seasons and hot-climate varieties for very warm regions in order to ensure they can still produce fruit in summer.

2. Provide Heat and Full Sun!

Tomatoes are heat lovers. Be careful not to plant tomatoes in the ground too soon. Your soil temperature must be consistently over 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 18°C). Warm the soil with black plastic a couple of weeks prior and protect seedlings from the cold with sheets or row covers.

3. Provide The Right Growing Conditions

Add plenty of organic matter in advance of planting. Quality garden compost or well-rotted manure applied lavishly, can supply enough nutrients to last the entire season, and will help with retaining moisture—a lifesaver during the heat of summer! Two weeks before planting your tomato plants outdoors, beef up that soil! Dig into the soil about 1 foot deep and mix in aged manure or compost.

4. Plant Deeply and Provide Support

Most plants need to be planted at the same depth they were growing at as a seedling or young plant. But not tomatoes! When you plant tomatoes, plant a little deeper than they come in the pot, all the way up to the bottom few leaves! Tomatoes root along their stems, so this trick helps them develop stronger roots.

5. Mulch Your Tomatoes

Don’t forget to add a blanket of mulch! It helps to conserve moisture (tomatoes love their water!) and keeps soil-borne disease spores from being splashed up onto the plants. There are many good mulches to choose from—shredded pine bark, straw, shredded leaves, grass clippings, composted leaves, or even a thick layer of newspaper. Oddly enough, red plastic has been found to increase the fruiting of tomatoes by 12 to 20%.

6. Remove Leaves and Suckers

“To pinch or not to pinch?” is a debated question. All tomatoes have suckers or side shoots that form between the main stalk and the side branches during the early growth of their plants (the crotch joint).

You definitely do not want to pinch determinate (bush) varieties, or you will have only a few fruit clusters. Since determinates bear fruit only on the ends of their branches, never clip them off, or you won’t get any fruit at all!

However, most gardeners do pinch indeterminate tomatoes (the type that keeps growing). You can pinch out the side shoots or suckers when they are young and tender. The best time is first thing in the morning when the plant is turgid. Just snap them off with your fingers.

7. Water Consistently?

Watering is one area where getting it right counts! Juicy tomato plants need 1 to 2 inches of water per week. But not all at once. Aim for consistent moisture as plants are establishing, and then, once they begin to set fruit, let the soil or potting mix just about dry out between waterings. It’s okay for the foliage to show early signs of wilting before watering, but don’t push it too far.

8. Feed, Feed, Feed

The tastiest tomatoes are gleaned from plants that have access to all the nutrients they need.

Besides prepping the soil with organic matter (compost), most gardeners also apply a slow-release organic fertilizer to the soil at planting time or apply regular liquid feeds using a product specifically formulated for tomatoes (which often has extra calcium).

9. Defend Against Disease?

Blossom-end rot is a common complaint typically caused by a lack of calcium in the fruit. Often, though, the simple cause of blossom-end rot is irregular watering, which makes it harder for the plants to absorb all the nutrients they need. To boost the calcium content of your soil, consider using eggshells, which are full of calcium.

Blight is a far more serious threat. This disease can lay waste on an entire crop within days. Good airflow will help reduce problems, as well as water at the base of plants to avoid wetting the leaves. Many gardeners even remove the lowest leaves specifically to improve airflow and minimize splashback when watering. Laying a mulch of clean, dry organic matter such as straw can also reduce splashback.

10. Harvest for Maximum Flavor

Harvesting tomatoes is an art in itself. You can harvest once the tomato is red and gives slightly to the touch. Don’t wait until it’s soft! Or you can actually harvest earlier when the tomato is half green and half pinkish-red (called the breaker stage) and ripen off the vine with no loss of flavor, quality, or nutrition.

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Hey—What’s that smell? If you think you’ve got a skunk hanging around your yard, it’s time to act! Here’s how to identify skunks and deter them from your yard and garden.

What Are Skunks?

Skunks are nocturnal animals that are naturally mild-mannered and non-aggressive; they prefer small animals and insects for dinner instead of your garden. They occasionally visit gardens, and if they do, it may be because corn or other plants are close to the ground.

The skunk claims homesteading rights from coast to coast. Distributed across the country are 4 species of skunks, including the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) and the spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius). The common striped skunk lives mostly in sparse forests and fields.

Skunks can be very nice to have around because they dig up and feed on the larvae of cutworms, Japanese beetles, hornworms, and other crop-destroying insect life. However, skunks are not only partial to insects; they will eat leaves, buds, grasses, grains, garbage, any fruit or berries within reach, and even small game. They also may disturb your plants while digging for these grubs. This is what can make them a bit of a nuisance to gardeners.

Although their nocturnal wanderings around our fields and gardens, lawns, and flower beds cause us occasional inconvenience and uneasiness, these are minor faults that can be readily overlooked by the time the Harvest Moon begins to shine. It is then that the skunk’s appetite for the pests that plague our gardens helps make it possible for that Moon to glow over a cornucopia brimming with plenty.

How to Keep Skunks Away

• Spray a mixture of castor oil and dish-washing detergent diluted in water. Skunks find the smell offensive. Spray the area at night when the skunk is away foraging.
• Probably the best skunk repellent is light. Skunks are nocturnal and their eyes are very light-sensitive. A bright light or a motion sensor flood light will scare skunks away.
• Most animals, including skunks, dislike the smell of citrus fruits. Place orange or lemon peels around the yard as a natural skunk repellent.
• Predator urine (dogs, coyotes) can be used to repel a skunk. These are commercially sold in garden centers. (Note: Use a responsible source for predator urine to make sure that the animals are treated humanely and the brand complies with state and federal regulations.)
• Many readers have found success placing ammonia-soaked rags around the yard, however, these need to be replaced often.
• If the skunks are in a smaller garden patch, put bars of strong-smelling soap or a room deodorizer near your garden. Ironically, skunks hate strong scents.

If nothing works, there are humane ways for professionals to trap raccoons and skunks and transport them elsewhere. Often, skunk removal by trapping is the only answer, and there just isn’t a lot you can do if it is a skunk. However, be aware that many species of wildlife do not survive when placed in a new territory, and it may not even be legal to trap and relocate wild animals in your area.

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Published by: Almanac

Time to replace that boring patch of lawn with a bright and beautiful flower garden! Let’s talk about how to start your first flower garden from scratch. We’re going to start small with some expert flower design tips to consider—plus advice for choosing, planting, and growing your flowers.

We all dream of a lush, lovely flower bed full of colorful blooms all season long. What we end up with is usually a different story. Does your color run out when the heat hits? Do the plants clash and give the impression of clown pants? Do the tall plants crowd out the short ones? Is it all looking shabby by late summer?

Let’s review how to start your flower garden from scratch to understand the important considerations along the way.

Picking the Perfect Location

Be sure to locate your flower garden where you can enjoy it every day. Take time to assess your site. Here’s a short list to go through:

How much sun does your garden get? Many people are surprised that they’ve made some wrong assumptions. Over a single typical day, write down the amount of sunlight your garden receives every hour from early in the morning to sunset. Is it full sun (6 hours or more), partial sun (3 to 6 hours), partial shade (about 3 hours), or full shade (less than 3 hours)? If you find your plant leaves burn or growth becomes leggy, those are hints that the plants are placed in the wrong location.

What is the soil like? You simply need healthy soil that’s not compacted and that drains well. A couple of clues: After it rains, the water shouldn’t pool in the garden area. Also, it shouldn’t be difficult to dig into the soil to amend it with organic matter such as compost to provide nutrients and improve soil structure.  Learn how to garden in compacted clay soil.

Once you know what you are dealing with, you can select plants that will do well on your site. Think of your garden as a multi-layered community of plants. When you buy a plant, you’ll see that the tags will tell you how much sun exposure they need. Other things to consider about your gardening site include:

Does your hose reach that far? Having an accessible water source will be important, especially when the heat of mid-summer kicks in.

Also, consider what function—other than looking gorgeous—you’d like it to perform. Screening an ugly view? Adding privacy or a place to sit? Do you want to see it from inside the house? Make a welcoming front walkway. Surround a deck or patio? Will it be a border garden on the edge of the lawn or an island of color in the middle?

How much work do you want to do and how much time do you have to spend caring for your new garden? Be realistic. It is best to start small. You can always enlarge your garden over time.

Prep Work for Flower Garden

Before you start digging, make sure to check for buried utility lines by calling Dig-Safe at 811.

Lay out the location of your garden with a garden hose or rope. Make sure the curves aren’t too sharp so you can still mow around it easily. Once you get a shape you like, mark the outline with lime or powdered chalk. Use an edger or flat spade to cut along the edge.

There are many ways to attack your grass. You can dig it up by hand, till the grass in if it isn’t weedy, remove the sod completely, or smother it. Personally, I prefer smothering to digging. Using the lasagna method, cover the area with a thick layer of newspaper or cardboard, wet that down and cover it with several layers of any organic mulch materials you can find such as shredded leaves, coffee grounds, grass clippings, manure, compost, topsoil, rotten sawdust, and seed-free straw. It will take a while, but eventually, the grass will die off. You don’t have to wait though—you can dig planting holes directly through the mulch into the ground and start planting as soon as you like.

Avoid digging or handling soil when it’s wet in order to prevent compaction. If you squeeze the soil into a ball and it doesn’t crumble or fall apart, it’s too wet to plant.

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Published by: AARP

Karen Beauchemin calls gardening her therapy. Over the years, she’s spent a lot of time in her West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, garden tending to her vegetables and flowers from her perch on “my little bench.”​

Gardening should be fun, not backbreaking. So, like Beauchemin, invest in the tools that make it an easier and safer activity as you age. Those tools are often simple and inexpensive — or things you can adapt yourself.​

1. Lightweight hose​

These come in different styles, including coiled plastic, metal, and various fibers, and are much easier to drag around the yard. Some retract, others wind on a hose reel. To make them last, drain them after use. Price: $35 and up for 100 feet.​

2. Hori Hori​

This Japanese all-purpose blade is about 7 inches long, 2 inches wide, and concave. Linda Scharf, 64, of Onset, Massachusetts, says she uses hers for digging, weeding, measuring depth, and cutting weeds. “The weight is really good, and I really have not bought any other tool.” Price: $25 and up.​

3. Adjustable, telescopic rake​

These lightweight rakes adjust for handle length and the width of the raking tines, so they are wide enough for a yard or narrow enough for flower beds. Price: $20 and up. ​

4. Kneeling bench or kneepads​

Turner’s husband wears hockey pads. Kelly-Begazo prefers one of the padded seats that flip to become a kneeler with side handles that support you as you stand. Price: $40 and up for a kneeler.​

5. Two-wheeled wheelbarrow​

Traditional single-wheeled wheelbarrows can tip when they get heavy, twisting your back, says Turner, who prefers a child’s wagon. Look for carts or wheelbarrows with two wheels. Price: $70 and up, depending on size.​

6. Elevated garden beds​

Installing a bed raised off the ground will prevent you from having to bend over or kneel on the ground to do your planting, weeding, and harvesting. An elevated bed allows you to sit on a stool or a chair to work on your garden. Build the bed to your own desired height, but be sure to consider the root depth of the kind of flowers or vegetables you’ll likely plant, and use cross supports for anything taller than 18 inches. You can buy raised garden planters or make your own.​

7. The right clothes

What you wear can make gardening easier and safer. Start from the top with a wide-brimmed hat to protect your face from the sun. Next, consider sunglasses or safety goggles to protect your eyes from dirt and stalks. If you live in an area with ticks, wear clothing treated with .5 percent permethrin, and tuck your pants into your socks. Wear long sleeves or invest in a pair of “farmers sleeves” — stockings for your arms that cost about $25 a pair and come in fun colors and patterns. Don’t forget gloves to protect your hands from dirt, bites, and chemicals. For weeding, try kitchen cleaning gloves, which are flexible but have a grip delicate enough for the smallest intruder.​​

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