It’s a cliché, almost: goats will eat anything and everything. While reality may not extend that cliché all the way to the proverbial tin can, goats are hearty eaters and will take care of just about any type of vegetation they get access to. In this way, they are superior to other grazers in that they eat everything they come in contact with.

Goats will eat ivy, blackberry bushes, and they’ll take down kudzu, too. In fact, they’ll eat trees if they have nothing else available to them. Goats are nature’s lawn mowers, and though they may be more discriminating eaters than cliché would dictate, they make great [...]

Growing a vegetable garden is a great way to use your outdoor space as well as provide healthy and nutritious food for your family. Vegetable gardens are also a great way to teach children about plants and responsibility in caring for a growing garden. Here are some easy vegetables to grow in your garden this year that will not disappoint!

If you want close to instant gratification in gardening, consider planting lettuce. This is a great vegetable that is easy to grow and will give you plenty of lettuce for salads and summer recipes. Lettuce grows and can go from seed to table fairly quickly. Consider planting lettuce at different intervals to make sure that you [...]

Spring means it’s time for everyone to get ready to spend more time outside doing what they love. For some, that means going to the pool every day. For others, it might mean hiking more often. If you would enjoy nothing more than to spend a warm spring afternoon in your garden, then this might be the most exciting time of the year for you.

You’re ready to start picking out new seeds to grow, and you’ve spent a while dreaming about how you’re going to design your garden this year. Maybe you’re using the old layout from the past year in a new way, or perhaps this is your first garden altogether. Whether you’ve had a long history with gardening [...]

If you want a vibrant lawn to view from your patio or walkway this summer, you need to start taking care of your lawn in spring. Winter can be very hard on lawns. Ice and snow can injure or even kill the turf roots. The cold temperatures and packing of snow and ice can compress the soil and result in less than healthy lawns. You may need to revive soil, plants and grass — as well as ensure that the lawn stays healthy through the spring and summer. Here’s how.

At the end of winter, lawns can have debris of various sorts on them. It can be leaves that escaped the rake, weeds, nests of small animals, tree branches that dropped due to heavy snow or ice, [...]

There are very few experiences that rival the sheer enjoyment you get out of growing your own food. Gardening is relaxing and is a great way to exercise while putting healthy food on your table. Unfortunately, in the age of organic and chemical-free growing strategies, it can be easy to find yourself inundated with hordes of creepy-crawly pests.

If you’re hoping to make the most of your natural space without contaminating it with store bought chemicals that can also harm yourself, practice safe gardening and consider making one of these DIY pesticides to keep the critters at bay.

It’s easy to make a homemade insecticide from mild liquid soap [...]

While there is some charm to a wildflower garden, most of us would prefer that the bushes, trees, and plantings around our house rein it in a bit. Not only does pruning help with curb appeal, but it’s healthy for the plants around your home. And for some of us, it scratches that itch to keep everything neat and tidy.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Flowering plants are easy to maintain. There are a couple techniques you can try throughout the year to keep bushes with blooms bright and thriving:

You may currently be staring out the window, seeing snow on the ground and reading an extra-low temperature on your thermometer. It’s the middle of winter, but it’s not too early to start planning your spring patio projects — even in the midst of the big chill. To make that task a little bit easier, we’ve put together a guide to help you plant and cultivate your patio garden.

Waking up to frost on the ground may lead you to believe that it’s way too early to start planning, but that’s not true. The frost is actually a great indicator of when to start your spring planning.

Many green thumbs wait for the last frost as [...]

The nostalgia and romance of the ambiance from a gazebo still has a draw, even today. It can act as a private retreat away from the stress and cares of the everyday world. Whether you want to sit and read a book, contemplate with a cup of tea, or just enjoy your garden–gazebos have a touch of old-world charm.

Initially used as a “gazing room” in the Victorian and Edwardian ages, gazebos were used to for enjoying the panoramic view of gardens and surrounding property. They are also classically used in romance novels as the setting for a forbidden tryst or a way to spend some time together as a couple. By any stretch of the imagination, gazebos are timeless.

According to the National Association of Realtors, 63 percent of homebuyers will drop by after viewing a home they like online. The term you’ll hear for this first is “curbside appeal,” and it refers to the first impression buyers have of a property. No matter how great a home is inside, it’s first impressions of the outside that matter.

What will buyers see when they pull up to your home? The next time you pull up to your home take a look at what you see. Drive by it both ways and really see what it looks like. Think like a buyer. What would they see? If you think your home looks “fine,” then ask friends or a couple of realtors for an [...]

After cleaning up your yard and garden, it can feel like a tall order to winterize all your plant life, but you’ll thank yourself for putting in the extra work next spring. There are a number of simple steps you can follow both before and during winter to ensure your lawn, potted plants, and garden plants all come back strong and lush in the spring.

The best way to ensure your lawn comes back strong in the spring is to give it a fighting chance starting in the fall. Apply winterizing fertilizer in the late fall – pellets work great and will slowly release supplements as the lawn absorbs moisture through the winter. But don’t just lay [...]

It only took one winter of clearing snow with a shovel for me to know that I needed a snow blower. Beyond taking way less time, snow blowing has saved me from my annual tradition of throwing out my back after the first snowstorm of the year. But only after I began shopping for a snow blower did I realize that I knew nothing about snow blowers.

To save you the headache of digging around online and pestering Home Depot employees with questions, here’s everything you need to know about buying a snow blower of your own.

You’ll want to begin shopping for a snow blower before the first snow starts to fall. Most stores will see a run [...]

With the holidays coming, don’t forget to decorate the outside of your home as well as the inside. Give the outside the warm holiday feeling from the curb to the door and then go on inside and sit by the crackling fire that’s in the fireplace. Sprucing up outside and decorating too can lengthen the holiday feeling even after the season as the decorations linger.

via Southern Living

Before you start the decorating process, step outside and look around. Are their papers and trash stuck in the bushes? Does your grass need to be mowed if you live somewhere warm? Do sidewalks need to [...]