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The post Should You Remove Plants from Garden Beds in Fall. A Winterization Guide is by Jerad Bryant and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog. The urge to clean the garden in the fall is overwhelming. You’ll want to rip out dead plants and remove fallen leaves. It’s good to clean our homes, but it’s not good to do the same in the garden. Use this winterization guide from native plant gardener Jerad Bryant to work with nature rather than against it. The post Should You Remove Plants from Garden Beds in Fall.

The post Winterizing Garden Tools: Cleaning and Storage Guide is by Jerad Bryant and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog. Don’t leave your tools out. They may turn rusty and dirty over the winter. It’s best to clean, sterilize, and polish them in the fall for winter storage. Learn how to best care for your precious garden tools alongside landscaping professional Jerad Bryant. The post Winterizing Garden Tools: Cleaning and Storage Guide is by Jerad Bryant and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog.

A tick-borne disease affecting cattle has expanded to 48 Missouri counties. Producers should monitor herds for anemia symptoms and implement tick control measures.

I like to see the world with a hefty dose of awe and wonder, so when I look at a seed, I think about the magic that has to happen for a single seed to sprout. It's not really magic. But, doesn't it feel that way. Think with me for a moment about these three amazing things about seeds. Baby Plants Have you ever thought about what is inside those seeds that you plant in your garden every year. There's a baby plant in there. You can soak a seed, and if it is big enough, dissect it and actually see it tucked inside there. I do it every year with my Botany classes. (Botany in an Hour Tip: Dried pinto beans work great for seed dissection. Viability Seeds can last an amazingly long time. We have all found that neglected seed packet that is who knows how old, planted the seeds doubtfully without expectation, and more often than not, many of them will still sprout.

The post Fall Apple Harvesting and Winter Storage Tips is by Melissa Strauss and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog. Fall is apple harvesting time, and we can't wait for that first crisp bite. Join gardening expert Melissa Strauss for harvesting information and tips on storing your apples to keep them fresh. The post Fall Apple Harvesting and Winter Storage Tips is by Melissa Strauss and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog.

Processing and weaning plans are underway for spring calving herds.

The post How to Winterize Garden Beds for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know is by Melissa Strauss and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog. Fall is here, and it's time to begin thinking about winter in the garden. It's important to protect your garden beds, so the garden is ready to come back to life in the spring. Join gardening expert Melissa Strauss to go over the essential tasks to winterize your beds. The post How to Winterize Garden Beds for Beginners: Everything You Need to Know is by Melissa Strauss and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog.

The post November Lawn Care: Winterization and Final Mowing Tips is by Jerad Bryant and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog. Set your lawn to rest this November with good care and maintenance. Cut it back, feed it, and prepare it for the cold months ahead. Proper November lawn care leads to growing success in the spring, when bunches of green grass blades emerge from the dormant roots. The post November Lawn Care: Winterization and Final Mowing Tips is by Jerad Bryant and appeared first on Epic Gardening, the best urban gardening, hydroponic gardening, and aquaponic gardening blog.

Here on the homestead, everything we do is about more than just food, livestock, or resilience. It's about building a legacy that lasts for generations. Watch as we build this off-grid cabin to continue the legacy here at Riverbend. When our daughter and her new husband asked if they could build a life here on the property, close to family and the land, we were honored. Of course, the timing was tight. We had just three months until the wedding, but when has that ever stopped us. With evenings and weekends, a lot of determination, and help from the whole family, we built a 16 x 32 off-grid cabin in just 67 days. This cozy 500-square-foot home includes a small kitchen and living area, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a loft for extra space. It's heated by a wood stove and powered by a generator, with plans to add solar in the future.

Over the last few years, Josh and I have really been focusing on learning how to be more efficient with our time on the homestead. And one of the biggest game changers for me has been finding foods that pretty much preserve themselves. Pumpkins and winter squash have become a huge part of that for us. They store beautifully for months, feed both our family and our animals, and make it possible to be a little more resilient each season. But you know, life on the homestead doesn't always look like a tidy how-to video. It's messy, full of lessons, and always changing. So today, I want to take you through what growing, harvesting, and using pumpkins really looks like for us, from seed to pie. Starting from Seed It all begins in the early spring when we choose our pumpkin varieties and get them started indoors. I used to start them way too early, about eight weeks before our last frost date, and they always got stunted when I planted them out.

The best way to prevent winter mortality is to choose cold-weather chickens bred for your environment. Living in an area of the world with long, cold, wet winters, it’s common to see new chicken owners reaching out for help as temperatures drop. As the frosts hit, ice forms, and snow falls, there’ll always be the occasional person who realizes too late that they don’t know how to help their birds make it through the coldest days. Most support will be around housing, bedding, proper ventilation, and keeping the runs clean and dry. However, the best advice for new chicken owners should come before they buy their first chick. Chicken breeds have been developed for specific climates like any other domesticated animal. The best way to prevent winter mortality is to choose chickens bred for your environment. Learning what characteristics will help birds thrive in cold weather will help you and your birds get through winter more easily.

Native Americans domesticated turkeys much earlier than thought. Until recently, it was assumed that Europeans who colonized the Americas domesticated the turkey a few hundred years ago, while the Native Americans had historically hunted them. Now, scientists have found evidence that suggests that turkeys were domesticated and managed independently by early Native Americans in the Southeast and Mesoamerica hundreds of years earlier than initially thought. Using stable isotope analysis, scientists measured the age of turkey bones found on ancestral sites. By knowing the half-life of specific isotopes, scientists can look at the ratio of parent and daughter isotopes in a sample to determine the age of a material. The scientists also measured the bone lengths to compare ancient bones to modern male and female wild turkeys of different species and subspecies.