Processing Ideas, Tips & Guides

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.

While a light hand is apropos for many pruning jobs, sometimes a judicious but heavy hand is needed. Rejuvenation pruning is a heavy-handed but efficient method to bring overlooked, overgrown, and mismanaged shrubs back to their full potential. It is performed by removing every branch at or a few inches above ground level with a sturdy hand saw, loppers, or even a small chainsaw. For many shrubs in Mid-Atlantic gardens, winter is the perfect time to perform rejuvenation pruning. This is because in our zonal range, most woody plants are dormant and therefore exposed cuts are less likely to become pathways for pests and diseases (which are also dormant). And, when spring weather finally arrives, the shrubs will be perfectly poised  to push new, healthy growth.   

Broken ornaments, tangled lights, dusty stockings—sometimes, pulling your holiday decor out of storage isn’t as enchanting as you intend it to be.

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. 

Propagating bromeliad pups is both fun and rewarding, allowing you to easily fill your home with beautiful plants.

How to Repot Spider Plants in 5 Easy Steps

Alice Gorman, Flinders University

Growing mushrooms in a bag is one of the easiest ways to cultivate homegrown mushrooms. If you’ve ever tried one of the boxed, mushroom-fruiting kits available online or in specialty stores, then you may already have some experience with growing mushrooms in a bag. That’s because the kits frequently include clear polypropylene bags filled with growing mediums that have been inoculated with mushroom spawn. As a result, by the time a mushroom growing kit makes it to you, that bagged substrate is almost fully colonized by bright white mycelium—the fungal organism which ‘fruits’ by putting out loads of tasty mushrooms. Still, relying on a pre-packaged grow kit isn’t the only way to grow mushrooms at home. With a few supplies and close attention to detail, you can cultivate many different kinds of mushrooms—and a lot more of them—economically in bags. Keep reading to learn more.

IKEA

ADAM ALBRIGHT

This isn’t much of a secret, but Tan France’s generosity knows no limits. He’s provided several lifetimes’ worth of fashion and life advice through his work on eight seasons of Queer Eye (with the newest set to premiere in January) and Next in Fashion, the competition show he hosts with Gigi Hadid. But his taste extends beyond closets—and it shows in every corner of his home.

Every year, new trends and tricks pop up for holiday decorating. And this year, one holiday question that is perplexing us is: should you be washing your artificial Christmas tree?

The colours of autumn are so evocative. Russet, ochre and translucent crimson can look magnificent against a clear blue sky – or more importantly they can light up a dull grey day, catching the eye and cheering the heart. It is fascinating to know a little about the science behind the colour change in the second half of the year, as explained by Chris Clennett at Kew: ‘Trees, like most plants, use chlorophyll to photosynthesise…In autumn, trees that lose their leaves for winter go through a process to shut down photosynthesis and reclaim as many valuable chemicals as possible. Chlorophyll is constantly breaking down and being replaced through the summer, but the process slows down in autumn. This reveals all those other chemicals that were hidden by the presence of the dominant green chlorophyll…yellow flavonols, orange carotenoids and red to purple anthocyanins.’

The Society of Garden Designers has announced ten finalists across three award categories, in its annual SGD Student Awards, including the recently introduced urban sustainability award.  The shortlist was chosen by a judging panel that includes SGD Fellows Sarah Morgan FSGD and David Stevens FSGD and Tom Massey MSGD, who was a recipient of two of the first SGD Student Awards in 2015.

Brie Williams

Dive into the enchanting world of festive crafts by creating a mesmerizing Paper Christmas Star. You don't need fancy tools or expensive materials; just grab some coloured paper, scissors, and let your imagination take flight. This delightful project is not only a delightful addition to your seasonal decorations, but it also doubles as a fantastic family activity.

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Mandy Melnyk has made some changes to her egg and poultry business in the last few months. The owner of Meadow Creek Farms in northern Alberta serves about 200 families a month with her egg subscriptions and broiler chickens—but now, instead of customers coming to pick up their orders from Melnyk directly, she’s spending a lot of time in the car, delivering them herself. 

Pantone

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. 

Have you ever wondered What Does It Mean When a Cat Purrs? This gentle, rhythmic sound, often heard as we tend to our plants, is not just a signal of contentment, but a complex form of communication that reveals much about our beloved cats’ emotional and physical well-being.

Kritsada Panichgul

Henry Mustin popped open the trunk of his electric Volkswagen to reveal his arsenal: Loppers, pruners, saws and trowels, tucked into bags. Taking up the most space was Mustin’s weed wrench, an L-shaped specialty tool branded The Extractigator, which leverages the ground to yank deeply rooted vegetation from the earth.

How to Propagate Coffee Beans

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Imagine delicate petals transforming into plants! This may sound like some botanical magic, but it is entirely doable!

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.

Knowing when to trim boxwoods—and which methods and tools to use for the job—is as important for establishing new, young plants as it is for properly maintaining older, larger boxwood bushes. Luckily, with a few snips here and there, it’s easy to spur new growth or simply preserve an existing, desired shape.

Are you looking for distinct wall decor ideas? Then, add a living feature to your room with Best Ferns for Mounting on the Wall; find beautiful options below.

With the fall season upon us, there are many familiar flavors and scents welcomed during the season. Pumpkin is a fall favorite that includes an array of health benefits. Apples are also a fall favorite, with many different varieties and health benefits that make them a great source of nutrients, including vitamins and minerals.

Creating a garden is, initially, an introverted process. It takes a while to imagine a garden and to develop it into its final form. For much of that period your thoughts are just part of an evolving dream of a future reality. It takes longer to build a garden and a whole lifetime, or more, for that garden to mature. To embark on making a garden is an act of faith. The creative journey is made unique by the relationships we have with those we enlist to help us. Without other people there would be no garden. Together, we generate a great alchemical soup of ideas, we consider constraints and we discuss details that ultimately coalesce into the new garden. Landscape gardens can express themselves in myriad ways. I have always enjoyed the freedom landscaping offers to explore what the land, the people and the circumstances ultimately reveal.

How to Grow a Ginseng Ficus Bonsai

When you pull a pie crust out of the freezer aisle at the grocery store or a sleeve of cookies off the shelf, it’s likely that one of the ingredients they contain is dietary fat, such as soybean or palm oil. These oils are agricultural products, but do they have to be?

How to Grow and Care for Ferns Indoors Polypodiopsida

In a second building on his property in Springfield, Oregon, Gared Hansen grows mushrooms containing psilocybin, a psychedelic compound that grows naturally in the environment. Hansen harvests the mushrooms after each flush sprouts from the bins and bags in which he plants them. Everything harvested within a 24-hour window counts as a harvest batch, which he sends to a certified lab to be tested. Once approved, Hansen, the owner of Uptown Fungus, packages the mushrooms and sells them to the handful of service centers that have opened in Oregon over the past few months.

If you’ve spent months bidding on homes or searching for the perfect property, chances are you’re wondering whether now is the time to buy.