What Is Topsoil

Some potting soils are specially formulated for specific plants such as, but every container plant should be grown in some form of potting soil. But if you'd like your plants to have the best chance to grow and thrive, you'll need to choose the right...

The evening air was thick with Kentucky's characteristic summer humidity, and as I put away the last dishes of our evening meal, watching the last bits of sun paint the sky with a swirl of pinks, purples and blues, I savored a brief moment of peace.

If you don't have appropriate materials on site, get creative. At this size, huegels can be used as growing space as well as windbreaks and will require little to no supplemental irrigation.

No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn. (We just won't think about that distant part of the cycle right now.) This positive thinking might not have warmed my frozen toes or made my car door usable again, but it did offer a mental reprieve from...

Even conventional pharmacies and general stores dispensed homeopathic medicines. As he expected, his body developed symptoms of malaria, which, when he stopped drinking the stuff, went away.

Winterberry (Ilex verticillata), also known as winterholly, brightens winter landscape with brilliant berries. Children are particularly susceptible to adverse effects. Tolerance to caffeine is different for everyone, so amounts necessary to produce adverse...

"Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” –Gloria Steinem Dreaming of a particular chicken breed to add to your flock? I've been chastised in the past for having my head in the clouds instead of focused on the here and now, but I take Gloria Steinem's...

He brought his first seeds back to the U.S. and has been growing it ever since. Sometimes it's a new use of a well-known plant. Right now there is a lot of buzz about a plant called ashitaba.

Second, the collective social behavior of the nymphs was very telling—assassin bugs tend to be solitary hunters unlike immature leaf-footed bugs, which stay clustered after hatching from their eggs.

If there is no spring or give to the soil, it's probably still frozen and too cold to work.freestar.queue.push(function() { googletag.display("div-gpt-ad-300x250-ATF-1"); });It's best to wait for the ground frozen solid to break up naturally than to try...

Infected plants often have sunken lesions on the stem at or below the soil line.Various practices may be helpful in reducing the amount of damping off infection. The conditions of damping off vary depending on the fungus.Normally, however, cool, wet soils...

Compost is often referred to as "Black Gold," and indeed it can play a key role in adding organic material and nutrients to the soil. Do they send their grass clipping to municipal compost sites?

One solution is to brine the turkey, which I am doing. Heritage turkeys have a long productive life span measured in years and are very suitable for free-range, giving them a pasture diet and thus meat with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids.Ten different...

Let me explain.In 1994, my husband and I had the opportunity to open a small grocery store at his grandparents' former house after they died. Since the business didn't work, I closed the store and got myself a pantry full of groceries.

It is not native to Asia, and is closely related to the lily. This high-humidity houseplant can grow to heights of nearly five feet.Dracaena sanderiana is considered non-toxic to humans.The ASPCA's Poison Control Center lists lucky bamboo as a toxic substance...

"The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings," sings poet Robert Louis Stevenson in an apt summary of the wealth and diversity in nature's plant kingdom.

The same technique filtered down to home gardeners. For instance, soybeans (Glycine max) leave nitrates in the soil while corn (Zea mays) absorbs nitrates. Alternating different plants helps keep that balance intact.

Okoume is the wood of the Okoume tree (Aucoumea klaineana), a species native to west-central Africa, in particular Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and the Republic of Congo. It is considered very soft, rendering it unsuitable for use in situations requiring...

“Psst! Hey buddy, want a rooster?” Then I'll proceed to pull him out from under my jacket and try to hand him off. Now if I could just get that rooster to help… << More Dirt on Gardening >>

I'm not entirely sure why that is, but little things, like buying a new item of clothing or making a new friend, often serve as some of my greatest sources of happiness. The sky's the limit—but let's leave the coconuts behind.

It grows best in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 10 and warmer. Let the soil dry out to the touch before watering the plant. Deer will eat just about anything if they are hungry enough, according to Oregon State University's Extension...

A strong ammonia smell may emanate from the soil during this time, but that is normal.Low cost soil test kits are available from most garden centers or mail order gardening suppliers.

But by taking the time to give some extra care and thought to your soil at the beginning and end of each gardening season, you'll cultivate soil that will support the growth of healthy fruits and vegetables that you'll enjoy for years to come.

Instead of choosing the cheapest company, we chose one priced middle of the road because it was both informative and flexible with our budget. Seeking to make the 100-plus-year-old house as efficient as possible, we weighed the costs and benefits and...

When your spring chicks arrive from the hatchery, take these steps to identify them correctly. Maybe it's the human need to classify all the things ! A reader has asked, “Recently, I purchased three Black Sex Link chicks and a Black Australorp chick.

The juice is extracted in factories where larger rollers crush sugar cane stems. Sugar makers clean the juice with slaked lime, which settles the dirt and other particles suspended in the juice.

Heatwave Pink is a low-growing plant that will remain small all its life. Other varieties include Jaio Scarlet Eye, Peppermint Cooler and the unusual Blue Pearl, which is an F-1 hybrid with light blue blooms.