What Is Cardamom

Fill a pot that contains drainage holes with a combination of one part seed-starting mix and one part sand. For the best results, therefore, you should acquire fresh and untreated cardamom seeds from a seed seller rather than from your grocery store.After...

But farmers hold the unique qualities of embracing their callings, living them out passionately and always being true to the core of who they are. Do you like how you're doing it? Maybe you love farming but you want to take your crops in a new direction...

The evening air was thick with Kentucky's characteristic summer humidity, and as I put away the last dishes of our evening meal, watching the last bits of sun paint the sky with a swirl of pinks, purples and blues, I savored a brief moment of peace.

However, unless you are building your huegel on top of a particularly pernicious grass, such as Bermuda, this step is not essential and you can build your bed directly on top of the lawn.

Every time I climbed into my car in some new creative way, dropped my keys because my hands were shaking from the cold, or added another layer of clothing to my daily outfit, I thought of Hal Borland's quote above: This winter may be intense, but it won't...

So lower potencies like 6x to 30x or 6c to 30c are usually recommended, especially for do-it-yourselfers. Higher potencies sometimes trigger “aggravations,” when it seems like the patient is getting worse instead of better.

Cats, dogs and horses are all sensitive to winterberry toxicity. Winterberry (Ilex verticillata), also known as winterholly, brightens winter landscape with brilliant berries. Despite the beauty of its tempting fruit, eating winterberries should be avoided...

I may not be able to start gardening or backyard chicken-keeping any time soon, but when that time comes, I'll already have a head start. "Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” –Gloria Steinem

Sometimes it's a new supplement. He told me that he first discovered ashitaba during a trip to the Yunnan Province in China when was meeting with many different herbal-medicine manufacturers and growers.

Lean On Your Cooperative Extension Most gardeners can easily ID adult insects that they encounter either through published insect guides, university resources, entomological websites or garden centers.

Frozen soil is dense and rigid. Digging frozen soil is hard work and the minute you realize you are working way too hard just to turn up the soil is the time to put the shovel down and exercise some patience.There is never any sense in getting ahead of...

Once transplanted, only those seedlings known to be especially sensitive to damping off need be misted with fungicide daily until the first or second seed leaves have emerged.Another option may include seed treatment.

We don't know because no one tests commercial compost.According to the International Association of Certified Home Inspectors several diseases can be contracted through improperly processed compost.

This year's turkey, "Pumpkin", was presented to President Bush in a Rose Garden Ceremony. But is your turkey "green"? The orgins are obscure; some think it even goes back to Abraham Lincoln pardoning his son Tad's pet turkey.

Moreover, dried laurel leaves don't have a short expiration date - about one to three years. And I must confess I didn't even think they had an expiration date. I just emptied the bags into a large box and stored all the laurel dry leaves in my pantry.

This high-humidity houseplant can grow to heights of nearly five feet.Dracaena sanderiana is considered non-toxic to humans.The ASPCA's Poison Control Center lists lucky bamboo as a toxic substance to dogs and cats.Although Dracaena sanderiana is considered...

You can preserve biodiversity by abandoning the idea that your garden should resemble your neighbor's. Don't plant overused species and space related specimens far apart in your yard.

Each plant species leeches something from the soil while giving something else back. The legume helped replenish nitrogen depleted by the grain. In the first field, a farmer sowed annual grains such as barley (Hordeum vulgare) or wheat (Triticum aestivum).

Wood used for hardwood flooring is generally from much harder species such as red oak, which has a hardness of 1290. Okoume is the wood of the Okoume tree (Aucoumea klaineana), a species native to west-central Africa, in particular Gabon, Equatorial Guinea...

I asked two farmer friends to take him in, and both kindly declined. I covered our small pond and waterfall with a sheet of netting to keep the leaves out, and we're planning to pack away the patio furniture sometime this weekend.

I would go to restaurants or grocery stores, and I'd leave with a bag or a belly full of novel foods, a goofy smile plastered on my face. When I was growing up, I was a pretty picky eater.

Some are even bi-colored and have variegated foliage. Still, some plants are less attractive to deer than others. For this reason, bougainvillea is often grown in a container and brought indoors for the winter.

Always find out the acceptable pH range for the plants being grown, and adjust the pH to within a few tenths of the middle of the range. According to this definition, an acid is a substance that generates hydronium ions when dissolved in water.

Apply a layer of mulch that is 1 to 4 inches thick—less in wet/warm areas and more in dry/cold areas. Breaking up the roots at this time will make planting easier, too. At the time of planting, I pull back the mulch to direct seed, then cover the seeding...

I was curious to see how the insulation could be contained, knowing that spray foam expanded once sprayed. (Now you're catching on! Say it with me, “Aargghh-values.”) According to Energy Star, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency voluntary program...

After determining that the chicks have arrived safely, inspecting for pasty butt, and introducing them to heat, water and feed, the question we ask (as the immediacy wanes) is, “OK, which one's which?” I'm not sure why we're so intent on identifying...

The sugar crystals that are separated out are sticky and brown. One folk remedy combines sugar cane juice with dry ginger to stop hiccups, another uses equal parts sugar and yellow soap to treat boils.