i know what birds like: 11 backyard-habitat tips

It’s time for a test that’s different from the regular ones we see over social media. Here you can check your own knowledge on the most common fruits and vegs, as well as learn several new and interesting facts for some of the most commercial products that inevitably found their way into your stomach once in your lifetime at least.

Birds make a great addition to your garden, they’re great to look at and they’re useful as well. For instance, they will eat slugs, snails, aphids, insects and other well-known troublemakers.

“As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University” Blackadder Goes Forth, 1989

The solitary mason bee is a North American native pollinator that deserves more attention and respect. Honeybees do a lot of pollinating, but they are not native, their populations are in decline, and they are not as efficient at pollinating as some other species, including mason bees. Learn more about this humble bee and how to support it in your garden.

Growing Hyacinths

This is one of the many books in my collection but the only one to focus on growing big, bigger and biggest vegetables. If you want to grow giant vegetable for exhibition or to get large crops then there are many pointers in ‘How to Grow Giant Vegetables’ by Bernard Lavery and below.

Great April weather has produced a harvest of blossom on my apple trees. With no danger of frost and plenty of insects there should be no problem with pollination. Even the later flowering apples trees have open blossom and this means the essential cross pollination by more than one species will be taking place.

The original post on 5th April 2008′ was entitled welcome to the Compost Heap.’

I have been reading the Penguin Encyclopedia of Gardening which aims to provide ‘….an explanation of words used in a technical sense in a horticultural context in the UK and USA.’ Set out as an A to Z this resulting post, missing a thousand definitions, is unlikely to rank highly with search engines.

Sugar shortages have hit the U.S.—and they might mean that it costs you way more to stock your bowls with Halloween candy this year.

You don’t have to be a Starbucks aficionado to know Americans are obsessed with coffee. They love it so much that it’s the most popular beverage in the country, with consumption being at a two-decade high, according to the National Coffee Data Trends report.

If you’re keen on health trends, you might be hearing the buzz around maca root. If you haven’t, though, don’t fret: You won’t be seeing maca next to the other root vegetables in your local produce section, despite its many benefits. So, what is maca root, and how does it impact us? Where can you find it, and is it worth seeking out? Read on for everything you need to know.