Although living mulches are also known as cover crops, green manures or catch crops, these will not be discussed in this article. You can find an article on planting annual rye grass as a cover crop by clicking here. Plastic mats and rolls, rocks and ground up rubber tires, and similar mulching products, will also not be discussed here. This article will cover mulches that you can turn back into the soil after use.

Mulches make the garden look clean and neat; they keep soil off of garden vegetables that grow on or near the ground. Once the mulch has done its job for the season, they are simply turned into the ground, and add to the soils tilth and structure. In addition, when mulches become part of the soil, they add nutrient and microbial activity to the soil as they break down.

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There are two different types of raspberries that can be grown in the garden. Fall bearing raspberries (considered everbearing) produce fruit twice before the cane dies back. First in the fall (autumn), and then the following year in the summertime. The plants produce large clusters of white flowers followed by the fruit. The second type is a summer-bearing plant that yields fruit on a two year old cane. There is nothing prettier that a cluster of ripe red raspberries.

There are many varieties available through mail-order catalogs and from your local nursery. Some are sold as bare root stock, while others can be purchased as planted stock locally. My preference is always to start with rooted stock, however, if the best variety for my area was only available as a bare root item, I would have no trouble purchasing this type of stock for the garden. Remember to make sure the stock you purchase is best suited to your growing region. Raspberries need a good amount of winter chill hours but also need a growing season that provides them with a slow warming in the spring.

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Annual Rye grass can be used in a variety of ways that are all beneficial to your lawn, your garden or for erosion control on your property. Listed below are the methods you can use to receive the best benefits from an annual rye grass application.
Using Annual Rye for over seeding your warm season turf grass:
September is the best month, typically at the beginning of the month, to make this application to your current turf grass. Scalp your turf to one inch high and remove all of the clippings. If you’d like to aerate your lawn area, now would be a good time.
Aerate and then apply a high root stimulating fertilizer. This will support the roots of your warm season grass through the winter and also help the annual rye to get established. Then, spread the rye grass seed to approximately 10 pounds of seed to every 1,000 square feet of turf area. This is a heavy application, but you should be guaranteed a great stand of grass during the winter months.
Once the new seedlings reach 3-4 inches tall, make a slight mowing of no more than one inch. Maintain your new winter lawn at 3-4 inches tall. Fertilize with a 21-0-0 fertilizer at this time, and only apply this same fertilizer more than once during the season if you live in a warmer climate.

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Start by sterilizing your jars, lids and bands. You can do this in just one pot, but I like to place the lids and bands separate from the jars. Wash your jars, lids and bands in soapy water and rinse well before sterilizing them. Do not bring the water to a boil in the pot with the bands and lids.

Set out everything you’ll need to complete the entire process. It’s best to have all of the ingredients and tools at the ready, so you are not scrambling for an ingredient or tool that you do not have in the kitchen. Canning pots should allow you to cover the tallest jars you are processing with, with at least one inch of water.

Finely dice all of the following ingredients and place them into a large glass or plastic bowl, mixing in 1/8 cup of non-iodized salt. Keep them in this bowl for at least one hour, while you make other preparations. The following ingredients (including spices, liquid and sugar) will make 8 pints of sweet pickle relish:

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Day 1: Loosen up the dirt area with a heavy pitch fork or roto-tiller where you want the compost pile to live for the next two weeks. Drive a six-foot tall stake into the ground. Don’t drive it too deeply, as you’ll need to remove it in a few days. Saturate the ground with water and let it soak in.

Your first layer should be at least five to six feet square. Start making alternate layers with grass clippings or other green wastes, then brown materials like straw, dried twigs or shredded bark or mulch. Include household vegetable scraps and manures as well.

Wet each layer, adding just enough moisture to soak the layer thoroughly. Build your layers at least five to six feet square at the base, building up in a trapezoid shape to at least four feet square at the top of the pile. Continue to layer and moisten the pile. Build the pile up to about five feet tall. Wet down the entire outside surface, once your pile is complete.

Day 2: The pile should begin to heat up. With the mass of the pile, more than one cubic yard, the pile will heat up on its own. The pile will begin to break down and you’ll notice some settling. If you stick your fingers in around the stake in the center of the pile, you can feel the warmth. Ideally, you need the heap to heat up to at least 140 degrees to start killing off bad pathogens. Don’t let it get much hotter than that, or you’ll start killing off the good bacteria.

Day 3: First chop with a mattock or a turning with a pitch fork! Remove the entire outside layer of material and put it out of the way for now. Chop the rest of the pile, making sure you get a thorough turning of the material. Replace the material that was the outside layer into the center and wet it down. Put the pile back up around the stake, one foot at a time and wet down each foot tall layer.

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Harvesting your own fruit and then canning it into a variety of jams, jellies, whole or halved fruit slices or marmalades is just too much fun and you will end up enjoying your efforts well into the winter. There is nothing much better than hot toast with sweet tasting homemade pear jam on a cold winter morning in front of a roaring fire.

This canning recipe is really quite simple. The process takes some time, depending on how much you are going to make, because you will have to prepare the pears. This includes peeling, coring and finely dicing the pears so that they are spreadable as very small pieces.

Follow this recipe exactly for the best results. Make sure you use a liquid pectin, as it works much better than a powdered pectin (in fact, powdered may not gel the jam at all). You are certainly allowed to cut back on the quantity of sugar, but don’t cut back too far as this will affect the overall quantity of the recipe.

Make sure you use the freshest pears just harvested from your own trees or ask your produce provider for the freshest batch of pears he has available.

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Please read the complete recipe by clicking here