Summertime heat is at its peak, and it's normal to worry about upkeep with your lawn. If you notice your grass is getting dry, turning a dull color instead of a lush green, or isn't growing very well, you may be watering your lawn at the wrong time.
13.07.2024 - 01:48 / modernfarmer.com / Dan Nosowitz
On Wednesday, the EPA chief, Michael Regan, announced that the Biden administration will formally repeal the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, a law that is barely a year old.
In 2015, the Obama administration updated the 1972 Clean Water Act, one of the country’s most important environmental laws, with a rule typically referred to as the Waters of the United States rule, or WOTUS. One of WOTUS’s main goals was to provide guidance for what actually counted as a water source. This had been a major problem, with proposals for development often being decided on a (very inefficient) case by case basis. Does a river that dries up for part of the year qualify for protection? What about one that only connects to a larger river during heavy rains? What about a pond that shrinks and grows depending on the season?
WOTUS created some guidelines for what counts as, well, a “water of the United States,” which would seem at first glance to be a fairly non-controversial idea. But conservative farm groups, such as the American Farm Bureau, eager to paint the Obama administration as overreaching, latched onto WOTUS as a possible controversy that could drum up support. This is despite the fact that WOTUS included significant exemptions for farmers; the Farm Bureau and others described a dystopian world in which a puddle that formed on cropland could result in the government seizing control, which was not true.
Donald Trump, in his presidential campaign, cleverly made WOTUS a rallying point for rural America. By 2020, he had rescinded the 2015 rule and instituted his own, called the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, which significantly reduced clean water regulation.
In his announcement this week, Regan said Trump-era deregulation was a
Summertime heat is at its peak, and it's normal to worry about upkeep with your lawn. If you notice your grass is getting dry, turning a dull color instead of a lush green, or isn't growing very well, you may be watering your lawn at the wrong time.
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Climbing plants don’t always need a big pot of soil to thrive – if you have limited space, these specimens will be more than happy to grow in small vases/glasses/bowls of water.
My desk is usually surrounded by vacuums, various spray bottles, and heaps of cleaning tools. At one point, I had 17 vacuums of all types under my roof (many of which are now in new, loving homes). (And this is just a small peek into my life as a cleaning editor.)
If your refrigerator has a built-in ice maker, you probably use it frequently. Whether your freshly made ice keeps your water frosty during the day or serves as an after-dinner drink spruce up, the machine can stay busy and needs to be cleaned accordingly. Although modern fridges typically warn you when the water filter needs to be changed, they don’t tell you when the ice maker needs a good scrubbing—so cleaning out the ice maker is often a neglected household chore.
Without a doubt, there is one pot of flowers that is the most colorful on my patio right now. The surprising news is we just recently potted it despite the hot summer heat we're experiencing. I’m in steamy Alabama, with record humidity, so it’s a soupy, sticky, kind of hot here outdoors. Daily watering of many of my plants in the summer heat is simply is a must.
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Drought-tolerant plant combinations don’t need to be dry and boring. Xeriscaping, or designing a landscape to use as little water as possible, can be done while still maintaining a beautiful and interesting landscape. The physical traits that allow some plants to thrive without supplemental water can also lend fascinating colors, textures, and architecture to a design. Choosing plants native to areas where water is in short supply ensures that you are choosing plants that evolved naturally to withstand tough conditions.
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