Planting an herb garden

Growing an herb garden starts by correctly plotting out where to plant the herbs. It’s important that they’re positioned to receive the appropriate amount of water and sunlight. Additionally, you want to ensure they have enough room to grow.

· Herbs thrive in lots of sunlight, so be sure you plant them in an area that receives full sun, meaning sun throughout the day. The only exception here is if you live in a particularly hot, sunny environment. In that case, some afternoon shade can help protect them from scorching and drying out.
· You’ll get the biggest and best results if you plant your herb garden directly in the ground. This gives the roots plenty of room to grow and draw nutrients. But, potted herbs can also be a success. Just be sure to use a large pot for the best results. Mint is one herb that’s best kept in a pot. It’s rampant in its growth and can take over an entire garden if planted directly in the soil.
· Position the herbs at least two to three feet away from each other to allow them maximum space to grow.

Caring for the soil in your herb garden
Once you have your garden bed selected and an idea of where you’ll place the plants, it’s time to prepare the soil.

· You want the soil to be rich and loose so it drains well. When herbs sit in too much water, it chokes their growth. If you’re starting your garden in a bed of hard clay, you’ll have to till the soil. Use a tiller with sharp tiller tines to get down several inches into the dirt.
· Water your herb garden regularly. To ensure your herbs reach their full potential, check the soil every couple days to see if it feels dry. This is more effective than simply putting out a sprinkler on a regular basis. You need to know how your soil drains to avoid over- or under-watering.
· As a general rule, herbs don’t require much in terms of fertilizing or feeding. The best nutrient you can add to the soil if you want to fortify it is some compost or organic fertilizer.

How to harvest your herbs
So, now that your herbs are in the ground and growing, what’s the best way to harvest leaves from them? With some plants, you may be afraid of pruning them too often, but herbs actually need to be regularly trimmed. And, it’s as simple as taking pruning shears and cutting off what you need. This not only lets you use them as needed, but also helps promote their growth and keep them healthy.

To prune your plants, wait for them to grow almost eight inches high. Then, you can clip as much as you need. If you choose to trim most of the plant, be sure to leave several leaves that can continue to soak up the sunlight and help the plant bloom again. If you only need a few leaves or sprigs, you can trim just a little off.

Nurturing your herb garden through the winter
If you live in a climate with a finite growing season, you may be wondering what to do with your herbs when the weather turns colder. Most herbs can be brought indoors during winter months and kept alive so long as they are located on or near a windowsill that receives a lot of light. There are some herbs that will survive outside through the winter and bloom again in the spring. These perennial herbs include lavender, mint, sage and thyme.

Find more tips for caring for your garden
Growing the herb garden you want just takes a little time and attention. It also doesn’t hurt to have the right tools. A good tiller will come in handy each season when you want to turn over the soil to improve drainage and nutrients. Check out MTD tillers and lawn equipment to find the tools you need.

As an online magazine we’re a bit different than a print magazine. Our issues do not come out all at once as a new issue. We update columns and articles over a period of a few weeks and we often add new material weekly or even daily, so check back often.

Things get a little more complicated if you want to make full-time money. Full-time money means full-time clients. And to get full-time clients, you’re going to need to market yourself.

Marketing. Blech.

Fortunately, marketing isn’t all sleazy suits, slicked-back hair and snake-oil grins. In fact, a lot basic promotion tactics don’t involve any face-to-face time with potential clients. Here’s 5 effective ways to promote your lawn or landscaping business.

1)    Look Professional – Nobody wants unwashed, scraggly people skulking around their property in torn clothing. While working outdoors is almost always a dirty business, a team of matching, well-groomed landscapers cultivates an air of professionalism – and professionalism draws new clients. You don’t need to go over the top and dress your crew in tuxedos, but color-coordinated work pants and tee-shirts emblazoned with your company’s logo create a great impression.

2)    Get Your Name in Front of People – So you’ve got your company name on your uniforms. Good enough, right? Not quite. Cars zooming by can’t read the small print on clothing. Invest in some professional-looking lawn signs to stick in front your work sites. Slap your basic info in an eye-catching font on the exterior of your work vehicle. Fancy silk-screens and custom paint jobs look great, but they can be expensive. You can purchase custom vehicle magnets for much less.

3)    Advertising 2.0 – The Internet. Have you heard of it? Websites are practically a business requirement in this day and age. Even if you can’t afford a slick, professionally designed site, you should at least have a page with your basic service and contact info.

4)    Get Your Name in Front of People, Part II – Direct mail lets you reach customers you’d never otherwise meet, and you can canvas local residential areas pretty cheaply these days. Conversion rates typically fall around 1%, so if you mail out 5000 pieces, expect about 50 responses. An even cheaper option involves printing out simple fliers or door hangars and passing them out in the neighborhoods you service.

5)    Word of Mouth – Referrals are the best advertising you can get. Do a good job for a good price, act professional and stay friendly and wait for the phone to start ringing. While you can’t plan referrals, you can encourage them by actively asking loyal customers to spread the word – and offering them some type of discount if they send a new client your way.

See, no snake oil – I promised. These techniques work for large, established companies just as much as they do for smaller operators, but all the promotion in the world won’t sell shoddy work. Keep your lawns nice and green and your flowers bright and beautiful if you want to attract new clients.

What are Grubs

Grubs are the larvae of some types of beetles. Masked chafers and Japanese beetles are two of the beetle types that can cause a grub infestation. After the beetle eggs hatch into grubs in late summer, the immature beetles begin consuming the organic matter just under the surface of the soil. Most plants can survive this damage, but turf grass can become extremely damaged. The grubs will eat until the cold months set in, and then they will hibernate until spring. The larger grubs will then continue to eat until they emerge from the ground as adults. The adults will then breed and lay more eggs that will hatch into grubs.

The C-shaped grubs  have grey to white bodies and brown heads. They can be anywhere from 3/8 to 1 inch long.

Symptoms

If the lawn owner has a lot of adult beetles flying around their yard in the spring and summer, then there is a chance of having a grub infestation. Symptoms of this infestation resemble drought stress and may prompt owners to over water their lawns. The grass may appear off color, can wilt in the sun, could thin, or even die off in large areas. The lawn will also feel spongy, and because the organic roots are being eaten away the grass can be peeled back like carpet.

Checking for Grubs

A simple test to check for a grub infestation should be preformed before treating, as the symptoms do resemble drought stress. Several square feet of the turf should be peeled back. Look for and count the number of grubs that are found. If fewer than five grubs are found per square foot then they are not a problem. Healthy lawns may withstand five to ten grubs per square foot for a short time, but a sickly lawn should be treated. If more than ten grubs are found the lawn should be treated as soon as possible.

Treatment

Lawns with a small population of grubs face no threat from the immature beetles, but moles, raccoons, skunks, and other insect eating animals will be attracted. If the grubs are not the problem then the lawn should not be treated for them. Instead the lawn owner should take measures to detour the animals that could hurt their lawn.

Fertilizer insecticides or biological insecticides can be used to treat for grubs. The most effective time to treat the lawn is in late summer or early fall. Grubs will be smaller and easier to kill at this time. There are also spot treatments that can be used if the grub infestation is still small.

Sure, running a lawn service or landscaping business can provide you with a nice stream of income. But if cutting grass or pulling weeds is all you do, you’re leaving cash on the table. Offering other services designed to complement your main focus can seriously pad out your cash flow. Just ask the pimply faced teenager offering you french fries or the waiter suggesting a wine to accompany your pasta how effective upselling can be.

Supplemental services also help transform your seasonal landscaping into a year-round business. Shoveling snow might not be as glamorous or as fun as creating a colorful flower garden, but it does pay the bills. Year round work means you’ll need year round staff, cutting the vicious cycle of seasonal layoffs that plague so many landscaping companies – and steady work draws steady employees.

The number of supplemental tasks you can offer is almost limitless. Here’s a few services designed to start making you money today and get your entrepreneurial juices flowing.

1)    Irrigation Planning and Installation – Tons of homeowners hate laying pipes and the idea of altering water lines – nevermind all the heavy digging associated with installation. Do it for them – at a mark-up, of course.

2)    Water Features – Waterfalls and koi ponds create serene areas designed to relax and calm their owners. Again, this is a service that lots of people want, but few are willing to do for themselves. As a bonus, you can sell ongoing garden services to keep the area around the water feature well-groomed.

3)    Hardscaping – Stone walkways, patios and walls not only add visual interest to an area, they also increase property values. Installing them can be a lot of detailed, physical work – work that many homeowners can’t handle on their own.

4)    Lawn Care or Gardening Maintenance – If you’re a mower, start tending gardens. If you’re a gardener, start mowing lawns. Make yourself an all-in-one solution.

5)    Seasonal Prep & Clean Up – Yards don’t maintain themselves. Even if the time for gardens and lawns is past, there’s still raking, tilling, leaf pick-up, mulching, pruning, planting, parking lot sweeping, sprinkler maintenance and more to be done. You can even offer to put up and take down Christmas lights to generate income during traditionally slow periods.

6)    Snow Removal – Yeah, it’s cold. And yeah, your back can hurt after a while. But there’s always high demand for snow removal, at least in colder regions, and offering it keeps you in the hearts – and wallets – of your customers. Shovels are cheap; besides insurance, all you really have to worry about is staff and gas costs. Attach a plow to the company vehicles to get the job done faster – it’ll pay for itself after an afternoon of clearing driveways.

Those six ideas are just the tip of the iceberg; other possible services include trash and debris disposal and winter wood splitting. Supplemental services make your business more valuable to your client base – and help you squeeze out every dime of potential income.

Forests have a layer of decaying leaves and other vegetation that slowly transforms into a rich layer of humus.  This fertilizes the trees and keeps them healthy.  When we make a garden bed, the first thing we do is remove this layer so we see dirt.

If we are experienced, we till the earth to a depth of six inches, then till in three inches of compost.  Then we plant our garden in this soil.  The mulch is important, though.
Mulch helps hold in water until the plants need it.  If you have ever turned over a log and found a damp spot, you understand what the mulch does.  This means you have to water less often.

The second thing mulch does is retard weed growth.  Since the mulch blocks the sun, the weeds that need light to germinate do not grow.  The weeds that do try to grow usually starve before they make it through the layer of mulch.
Finally, the mulch acts as fertilizer.  It is suggested that you put a three inch layer of mulch around your plants.  Over the course of a year, the lowest inch slowly decomposes, adding nutrients to the soil.  If you add an inch each year, you will have a self-sustaining system of fertilizer.
Mulch can be pine straw, pine shavings, chipped wood, or shredded paper.  Some cities mulch the tree branches and other materials they cut to clear the power lines.  They then place it in a location where residents can go and shovel a load into their vehicle.  Other places sell that material.  You can call your city hall and find out if it is available or not.
Adding an inch of mulch a year also renews the look of the mulch for a neat garden. The work involved in putting out the mulch is more than rewarded by the weed control, water retention, and fertilizing functions it provides.

For more information about mulch, check out this complete guide about mulch.

Depending on sunlight, soil, and what the owner wants there are a number of different evergreen and deciduous shrubs and trees that are ideal for creating a privacy hedge.

Evergreen Trees and Shrubs

Evergreen shrubs and trees offer year round foliage for protection from prying eyes.

Holly plants can be grown as shrubs or small trees. They can grow 10 to 30 feet tall and spread 10 to 20 feet across. These plants are easy to prune into formal hedges or can be left to grow into an informal hedge. They can survive when planted in either sun or shade.

The Layland Cypress tree can grow 35 to 40 feet tall and will have a 15 to 20 feet spread. These trees are fast growing, and can create a hedge quickly. They are also drought tolerant when deep root systems are encouraged.

The Eastern White Pine is another fast growing choice. They can have a spread 20 to 40 feet wide, and can grow 50 to 80 feet tall. Eastern White Pine should be planted in full sun.

Deciduous Shrubs and Trees

Deciduous plants will drop their leaves in the fall. This offers home owners a beautiful scene every year, but does open the view during the winter months.

The Amur Maple tree has a compact growing pattern. It can grow up to 20 tall with a spread 15 to 25 feet wide, and is very useful as both a windbreak and hedge. They need very little pruning, and their foliage turns scarlet red in fall. It needs to be planted in sun, but can survive in partial shade.

Common Lilac trees grow only 9 to 15 feet high with a spread of around 10 feet. These vigorous growers bloom purple flowers in spring. There are many different cultivars to choose between.

The dense grown Amur Privet can grow 10 to 15 feet tall and spread 10 to 15 feet wide. One of the hardiest of the privet trees, it blooms white flowers in late spring to early summer, and produces blue-black fruit.

Sound Muffling Hedges

Many home owners do not realize that a privacy hedge can also reduce noise from outside sources. Sound muffling hedges should use evergreens, as they will more commonly have dense and compact growing habits. The hedge is created with three rows of plants. The first row is made of shorter dense shrubs planted next to the source of the noise. A second row of taller trees is planted as closely as possible to the first. The last row is created with shorter shrubs or trees. The last row of plants can be deciduous for a nice view in the fall.

As food is produced, you receive a share equal to your contribution.  Smaller families, for example, may choose to purchase a half share or split a whole share with another family.  With a CSA, you aren’t guaranteed a certain amount of food, only an appropriate share of what the farm produces.  If the growing season produces less food than expected – whether from drought or insect infestation, for example – you may get less food than you expected.  But if the growing season is bountiful, you may be surprised at just how much food you get.

CSAs are a wonderful way to get fresh local produce, including some vegetables that you may not be used to seeing in your grocer’s produce section.  There are some foods that simply don’t travel well, and therefore typically aren’t available in grocery stores.  This isn’t the case, however, with CSA.  Because you receive your CSA disbursement every week, the food will be picked at the height of its flavor and nutritional value.  Some CSAs require you to pick up your food at the farm, while others arrange a central pickup location or deliver your food to your home.

In addition, some CSAs divide the week’s production to all shareholders, while others do allow you to make some choices about the foods you receive.  For example, if you can’t stand broccoli, you may be able to exchange it for an extra serving of lettuce or tomatoes.  Many farms also include fresh fruits in their member shares, while others include cheese, flowers, eggs and locally produced meat.  Any products that aren’t used are usually donated to a local food bank or shelter, further benefitting the local community.

If you’re someone who would like to have a garden in theory, but as a practical matter, have neither the time or land, nor the physical ability to grow your own food, participating in CSA can be a wonderful alternative.  When families participate in a CSA program, they often find their children are more interested in “their” food, in learning where the food came from, and in eating the foods that were grown on “their” farms.

Participating in a CSA is also a good thing for the farmer.  First, the farmer knows in advance what the income will be for that growing season, regardless of how much food he or she is able to produce.  The farmer also has a ready-made market for the products and need not worry about finding a place to sell the food.

Community supported agriculture programs are a way to help bring the community together and restore the relationship people had with their food once again.  If you’re interested in participating in a CSA program, search online for one near you or ask around at your neighborhood farmers market for contact information.

1. Beware Hidden Readers. If confidentiality is an issue, don’t use e-mail. It’s not secure. You may intend to communicate with a single reader, but an inaccurate keystroke or the recipient’s decision to forward your message could land your e-mail message on hundreds of screens.

2. Write As Though Mom Were Reading. People treat e-mail too casually, sending messages they would never write on paper. Don’t write anything you would not be comfortable saying in an elevator crowded with colleagues, customers, and competitors. If you are

upset or angry, compose yourself before composing your message. Once you click “send,” your e-mail is on its way through cyberspace and probably can’t be retrieved.

3. Forget the Jokes. Hundreds of sexual harassment and racial discrimination lawsuits have resulted from improper e-mail messages that were intended as private jokes. There is no guarantee of privacy in cyberspace. Jokes, which too often are off-color or otherwise inappropriate, have no place in e-mail.

4. Remain Gender Neutral. Avoid sexist language that could offend, irritate, or rankle others. Your intended reader may be male, but the ultimate decision-maker could be the female executive who receives a forwarded copy of your message. A message loaded with masculine pronouns (he, his, him) could damage a business relationship.

5. Copy with Care. Sending carbon copies (Cc) and blind carbon copies (Bcc) to people who don’t need to read your message wastes everyone’s time. Carbon copy recipients are not required to reply, so don’t get angry when a response is not forthcoming. Blind carbon copies pose an additional challenge. If you inadvertently click Cc when you should have hit the Bcc key, you risk exposing yourself to complaints and possible lawsuits. Not only will readers be annoyed when they have to scroll through your Cc list (which could number in the hundreds or more), but the wholesale distribution of e-mail addresses could trigger a lawsuit on the grounds that confidentiality was breached or privacy violated.

6. Ask Permission to Forward Messages. Forwarding e-mail without asking permission could land you in legal trouble. Think before forwarding copyright-protected material or confidential data earmarked for your eyes only.

7. Respect Others’ Time. An in-box stuffed with jokes, health warnings, advertisements, and recipes is a real annoyance. Develop a reputation for sending spam, the electronic equivalent of junk mail, and readers will think twice before opening your messages. If you live in a state with anti-spam legislation on the books, spamming could net you a fine or jail time.

8. Don’t Oversell Your Message. Just because you have the ability to mark messages “urgent,” doesn’t mean you should. Do it too often and you may develop a reputation as a writer who cries wolf.

9. Inquire About Attachments. Some organizations prohibit the opening of e-mail attachments. Before sending an attachment, ask if the reader would prefer to receive the information as an attachment or as part of the message itself.

10. Incorporate a Salutation and Signature. Doing so will establish your role in the document’s history, no matter how often it’s forwarded. Added benefit: Your signature signals the end, sparing readers the trouble of scrolling the screen.

11. Punctuation Pointers. Some writers try to enliven their e-mail and generate reader interest by slapping an exclamation point onto the end of nearly every sentence! Don’t fall into this trap! Pump up your writing with descriptive language and well-crafted sentences. Likewise, resist the urge to Capitalize. Eager for reader attention, many e-mail writers use ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Bad idea. The eye is used to reading a mix of upper and lowercase letters. Stick with standard style.

12. Think Before Requesting a Receipt. Short of receiving a response, how can you be certain your e-letter was received? The quickest route to peace of mind is to select the “receipt notification” option on your screen. When the reader opens your message, you will be notified automatically. However, readers may resent the implication that you do not trust them to open and read their e-mail. The better idea is to phone your recipient with a quick heads-up that the message is on its way and a timely response would be appreciated.

13. Don’t Use E-Mail to Deliver Bad News. Without the benefit of body language, facial expression, or intonation, e-mail is no way to deliver bad news. Whether you want to terminate an employee, notify a customer of production delays, or reject a prospect’s credit application, always deliver bad news by phone or face to face.

14. Don’t Risk Misunderstandings. If your message is complex, technical, or in danger of being misinterpreted, opt for a telephone call or a personal meeting rather than an e-mail message.

15. Acknowledge E-Mail’s Limitations. E-mail may be the best way to deliver news fast, but it’s not necessarily the best route to a quick reply. Your reader is under no obligation to check incoming messages regularly, or at all. It is inappropriate to send a follow-up message demanding to know why a recipient has not responded to your message. For an immediate response to a pressing issue, don’t rely on e-mail. Instead, pick up the phone or schedule a face-to-face meeting.