Department Ideas, Tips & Guides

This story is part of our ongoing PFAS series, The PFAS Problem: Demystifying ‘Forever Chemicals’

When you finally move into your own place, there are lots of highs and lows. Case in point? The excitement of choosing your own decor, coming hand in hand with having to shell out money for said decor.

If your lawn is looking a little sad or sparse this year, June bugs may be to blame. These beetles emerge from the soil in spring or early summer, earning the common name of May or June bugs. “June bugs are a type of scarab beetle, with several species found in the Southeast,” says Shimat V. Joseph, PhD, associate professor of turfgrass and ornamentals, department of entomology, at theUniversity of Georgia. “They release pheromones for mating so you’ll typically see them congregating on the side of a building, often near a light.”

MyPlate, a visual nutritional tool from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, supports incorporating positive dietary practices by encouraging the consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, protein, and dairy in schools, governmental programs, and homes. MyPlate recommends 2 cups of whole fruit per day for an individual 14 years of age or older on a 2,000-calorie diet. A great choice of fruit to incorporate on your plate for August would be a melon. Melons can be a summertime favorite or a simple sweet treat!

The USDA has a long history of discrimination against minority farmers. 

You’ve had a bumper crop of strawberries (or scored a great deal at the farmers market) and already spent the summer enjoying your bounty via fresh strawberry recipes. Now you have lots left—what are you supposed to do with all those extra strawberries? Fortunately, freezing strawberries is a great way to preserve your haul for longer than that brief summer window.

This article is republished from The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Read the original article.

I have been watching and admiring the white antirrhinum, A ‘Liberty Classic White’, in the cutting beds for a few weeks, not wanting to cut any stems until all our garden visitors had departed. Now that they have indeed all gone, I was at liberty to use the stems in today’s vase, where they form the mainstay of an all-white arrangement.

If you've already encountered a few or a group of spotted lanternflies in your yard, you may need to take extra steps to protect your yard since this invasive pest can damage the ecosystem around them.

Ceiling fans can make a stuffy room feel pleasantly cool, but unlike air conditioners, they don’t actually lower the temperature of a room. Instead, fans generate a breeze, creating a wind-chill-like effect as the moving air helps you eliminate body heat. But if your ceiling fan only pushes around hot air, this phenomenon won’t be nearly as effective. To keep your home cool (and comfortably warm in the winter), learn how to change your ceiling fan direction for summer and winter.

Laurie Black

Whether you're on a personal mission to curtail the use of plastic bags or you happen to live in one of the handful of states that have enforced bans on them, chances are you might still have a few floating around your house.

Within a five-minute walk in any direction (really, pick one) from my apartment, there is a fire department, police precinct, hospital, an event space, a nighttime lounge, and four schools in my area. Needless to say, my street can get very loud at any given time of the day.

Keep yourself healthy this winter by staying up to date with a flu vaccination. Flu vaccines are your best line of defense against the current flu strains. These vaccines are safe and effective. However, it is still possible to contract the flu even after receiving the vaccine. Here’s why: The CDC partners with state public health departments and healthcare providers across the country each year to track flu strains. Flu vaccines must be formulated periodically to be effective against the most current flu strains. This means two things. First, a yearly flu vaccine is needed for up-to-date protection against the most currently prevalent strains. Second, there are always less prevalent flu strains circulating, and it is possible for you to become ill from a less prevalent strain despite being up to date with a current vaccine. But for most people, even if they do happen to become ill despite receiving the flu vaccine, studies show their symptoms are substantially reduced with fewer hospitalizations and deaths.1 Flu vaccination is especially important for the elderly and those with chronic health conditions who are at risk for more serious flu illness. Since 70-85% of flu deaths occur in people ages 65 and older, several new flu vaccine options are now preferentially recommended for this age group.1 Talk with your healthcare provider about which flu vaccine is best for you.

Here are the best Ways to Decorate with Indoor Plants to Energize Your Room! Get inspired and experience a soothing and positive home atmosphere.

On a September day in 2023, community members gathered at the Keep Growing Detroit Farm to witness the formal announcement of the city’s first director of urban agriculture. Tepfirah Rushdan, who had long been involved in Detroit’s farming scene as a farmer, educator and advocate, was a natural fit for the position.

If you’re driving along the highway in Florida sometime soon, you may find the roadside dotted with the blooms of thousands of flowers. But they aren’t just eye candy. These flowers are intended to create pollinator habitat corridors.

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If there’s one kitchen essential that shouldn't be sitting on the sidelines when it comes to throwing a game day viewing party, it’s a slow cooker. 

Pruning can be intimidating. Many of us fear making a mistake our plants won’t recover from. Overall, trees are resilient; with a little practice and know-how, any gardener should be able to tackle this task. Here are some things to keep in mind before grabbing the saw.

A hardiness zone is a defined geographical area in which a specific category of plant life can grow, according to the climatic conditions, including its ability to withstand certain minimum temperatures of the zone. For example, a plant is described as “resistant to zone 10” which means that the plant can withstand a minimum temperature of -1°C (30 F). A more resistant plant that is “resistant to zone 9” can withstand a minimum temperature of -7 ° C. The concept was initially developed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the system has been adopted by other nations.

As we set sail into the seas of 2024, an abundance of fashion trends are on the horizon (ironically, one being a sailor-inspired style, according to Emma Chamberlain). And as you may know, many trends often make their way from the runway to clothing department stores, and, eventually, into homes. Take food in fashion, which caught on in 2023. Aesthetics like tomatocore and grocery girl popularized by celebrities on red carpets and social media became a home decor hit.

Stacie Crooks is a Seattle-based garden designer who has created beautiful, ecologically friendly, low-maintenance gardens throughout the Pacific Northwest. She is also a contributing editor for Fine Gardening magazine and has shared her insights with our readers through 10 feature articles and several departments over the past 17 years. In this episode, Carol interviews Stacie about the lessons that she has gained from her years of garden design experience.  

Whether you find it in your garden or see it falling from the sky, it can be an indication of something that may symbolize with the scenarios in your life. Wondering what could it be? Read on!

It’s Sunday morning, and you’ve just made a full spread for the whole family. The fruit is chopped, the bacon is sizzling, and the omelettes are piping hot. There’s just one more step to completing the meal: the toast. But when you go to put the bread in the toaster, you discover something unsightly—white, fuzzy mold has grown across the last slice of the loaf.

Angel Wings flower arrangement ideas symbolize purity, love, and spirituality. Showcasing these during the events and functions adds a depth to the overall theme.

If you’re sick of being blindsided by inflated price tags at the grocery store, you’re not alone—volatile prices and frequent shortages made 2023 a tough year for food shoppers. Though pandemic-era inflation eased slowly this year, certain products still spiked in price, leaving families to improvise their weekly shops. Plus, global conflicts and extreme weather events made certain foods more expensive or increasingly sparse throughout the year.

Whether you’re preparing a charcuterie board soon or just like to have a few blocks around for snacking, chances are you’ve got cheese in your fridge. And if you’re a seasoned cheese lover like we are, you’ve probably run into some mold—it’s nearly inevitable when it comes to dairy.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly abbreviated as PFAS or “forever chemicals,” are ubiquitous. They have also been associated with debilitating health impacts, such as cancer, birth defects, liver disease, kidney disease and more. This can make it overwhelming to know what can be done to protect yourself from the far-reaching effects of these substances. Even though scientists estimate that PFAS are present in the blood of 97 percent of Americans, that doesn’t mean that people are helpless. We’ve assembled some proven ideas from experts and advocates for how to decrease your personal risk, look out for your community and create change. 

From our vantage point in a motorboat on the reservoir known as Franklin D. Roosevelt Lake in eastern Washington, we scan the rocky canyon walls of the Colville Confederated Tribes’ Hellgate game reserve for bighorn sheep. Before it was a reservoir, manufactured by the United States government’s Grand Coulee Dam, this was once a mighty, salmon-rich stretch of the Columbia River that formed the basis of an entire ecosystem—and that supported the 12 tribes of the Colville Confederated Tribes since time immemorial.

There’s a Christmas tree hack working its way through TikTok and promising to make your tree grow healthier and happier but, as is the case with many rumors online, there's not much truth to it.

Plants and interiors are what makes our hearts beat faster. We’re always on the lookout for what’s new in green decor, how plants inspire new technologies, materials and designs. That’s exactly what next month’s Maison&Objet is all about: the fair will show a revitalized future that combines technology and nature “TECH EDEN”. We have been at Maison&Objet many times (see  HERE and HERE), but from January 18-22 2024, they are launching a new program called “WHAT’S NEW? In Retail”. This helps professionals (independent boutiques, concept stores, distributors, department stores) to develop their business through workshops and merchandising solutions. Greenery, organic shapes, natural materials and well-being are obviously part of these “solutions” and we are excited to discover more next month.

Luiz Jiménez, 39, has been working on American dairy farms for 20 years. He is used to working long hours for little pay, fearful of losing a vital source of income for his family. A father of three, Jiménez is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico and came to the United States undocumented. He is one of an estimated 238,000 undocumented agricultural workers in the US. Like many others, he is without a visa, credit or health insurance, making it difficult to safely advocate for better working conditions without putting his livelihood at risk. 

These charming birds, popular for their striking red breasts and cheerful songs, signal the arrival of spring. However, most people think that they also carry some hidden meanings. So, What Does it Mean When You See a Red Robin? Read below!

If you're planning an IKEA trip in the next couple of months, you'll want to ensure that you're making the most of your visit, no matter whether you've frequented the retail store just once or have shopped there dozens of times.

Nature lovers feel a sense of awe when a dove gets down to perch at their place. As it lands gracefully, they might wonder: What Does It Mean When a Dove Visits? Is it just a usual thing, or could there be a special meaning? Let’s unearth the meaning behind this visit below.