Home Decorating Guru Blog

How to Grow Basil

 by: Hans Dekker

Today there are sprays, scented candles, plug-ins, and even discs that promise to freshen your air by putting a variety of aromas into your home. However, when you know how to grow basil, you can have enough variety of fragrance to package your own potpourri! The most commonly grown basil is the annual, ocimum basilicum that carries a minty fragrance that smells like… well, it smells like sweet basil. In addition to having a wonderful fragrance, sweet basil is an essential ingredient in soups, stews, pesto sauce, and just about any tomato dish. Knowing how to grow basil is a must for every herb gardener. You can grow herbs both indoors and outdoors

Basil comes in over 160 varieties that, in addition to the sweet basil fragrance, offer other aromas like those of lemon, licorice, and cinnamon and foliage colors that range from emerald green to royal purple. Learn how to grow basil and you provide a treat for you eyes as well as an aromatic treat for you nose.

Generally, when just learning how to grow basil, you’ll want to start your plants from seeds. Until basil stems are nearly mature, they are quite fragile and easily broken and bruised so transplanting young basil cultivars can be an exercise in futility. Luckily, basil is one of the cultivars that can be seeded directly into your garden and in fact, if you reseed your basil plot every three weeks, you’ll have fresh basil all summer long.

Basil is a low-maintenance plant. Although it prefers full sun, it will grow in partial shade. Once seedlings are established, basil is also drought tolerant and will actually provide better flavor if you don’t fertilize it! One tip you should know about how to grow basil and preserve its full flavor for culinary use is to pinch off flower spikes as they form.

Part of the fun of knowing how to grow basil is the many different ways to preserve it after harvest. You can harvest your basil anytime by snipping off its leaves as you need them and they turn many ordinary dishes into delicacies when used fresh. Basil can also be dried by snipping some stems and hanging them in bunches together. Air-drying basil in this way is a great way to add its aroma to your kitchen! When your basil bunches are completely dry, you can crumble the leaves and store them in glass bottles. Basil can also be preserved by freezing. Freeze small quantities of fresh basil in plastic bags or chop the leaves and freeze them in water in an ice cube tray.

Basil is an easy-growing herb that is full of possibilities for home décor, fragrance and culinary use. In addition, it’s as well suited for container growing as it is for direct seeding into your garden. Learning how to grow basil is a sweetly satisfying part of gardening, no matter what variety you choose to grow!

About The Author

Hans is gardener and owner of Gardening-Guides.com and Patio-Furniture-Ideas.com.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Popularity: 6% [?]

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How to Grow Asparagus

 by: Hans Dekker

Asparagus is a perennial plant with erect, edible stems and tiny branches that bear even tinier flowers that become red berries that contain the black Asparagus seed. Formerly in the Liliaceae family, botanists have realized that Asparagus is in a class by itself and have repositioned its 120 species in the Asparagaceae genus. Asparagus is a high-end gourmet food item, but if you know how to grow asparagus, it becomes an inexpensive way to add a delicate flavor to your meals.

Knowing how to grow asparagus dates back 2500 years ago when it was first cultivated in Greece. In fact, asparagus is from the Greek word for stalk or shoot. Long before it was used as a food item, asparagus was lauded for its medicinal properties. There are many reasons to grow asparagus. Once an asparagus bed is established, asparagus is the first vegetable that is table ready in the springtime and will provide your family with a firm and fresh vegetable treat for up to 20 years, each crown in your bed producing up to ½ pound of spears per year. Although supermarkets stock both canned and frozen asparagus, neither compares to the unique flavor you get from freshly harvested and picked asparagus.

As asparagus plants grow, they produce a mat of long, tubular roots that spreads horizontally rather than vertically. This one-year-old root system is called the asparagus crown. Although asparagus can be started from seed, it’s most often begun from transplanting crowns purchased from a reputable crown grower. Those who wish to learn how to grow Asparagus must have an abundance of patience, since it takes an asparagus bed three years to be established from crowns. The second year of growth, asparagus ferns emerge with a few spindly spears. At the third year, although your bed will produce thicker and more robust spears, they shouldn’t be harvested for more than one month to allow roots and crowns to become further established.

Plant asparagus crowns in a trench that is one to two feet wide. Set the crowns up to six inches deep and nine to twelve inches apart. Asparagus grows easily in any well-drained soil. Found growing wild on English riverbanks, the delicate asparagus ferns were nicknamed “sparrow grass”. However, asparagus allowed to stand in water develops root rot, which can quickly destroy a complete bed. Asparagus roots have a tendency to “rise” as the bed matures. Gardeners typically add soil to the rows of a mature asparagus bed to keep the crowns undercover. Asparagus is also susceptible to late spring frosts, which kill emerging spears Take care to keep your asparagus bed covered until frost danger is past.

About The Author

Hans is gardener and owner of Gardening-Guides.com and Patio-Furniture-Ideas.com.

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Reduce Your Heating Bills This Winter

 by: Mark D. Tyrol, P.E.

Imagine leaving a window open all winter long — the heat loss, cold drafts and wasted energy! If your home has a folding attic stair, fireplace or clothes dryer, that may be just what is occurring in your home every day.

These often overlooked sources of heat loss and air leakage can cause heat to pour out and the cold outside air to rush in — costing you higher heating bills.

Air leaks are the largest source of heating and cooling loss in the home. Air leaks occur through the small cracks around doors, windows, pipes, etc. Most homeowners are well aware of the benefits caulk and weatherstripping provide to minimize heat loss and cold drafts.

But what can you do about the three largest “holes” in your home — the folding attic stair, the fireplace and the clothes dryer? Here are some tips and techniques that can easily, quickly and inexpensively seal and insulate these holes.

Attic Stairs

When attic stairs are installed, a large hole (approximately 10 square feet) is created in your ceiling. The ceiling and insulation that were there have to be removed, leaving only a thin, unsealed, sheet of plywood.

Your attic space is ventilated directly to the outdoors. In the winter, the attic space can be very cold, and in the summer it can be very hot. And what is separating your conditioned house from your unconditioned attic? That thin sheet of plywood.

Often a gap can be observed around the perimeter of the door. Try this yourself: at night, turn on the attic light and shut the attic stairway door — do you see any light coming through? These are gaps add up to a large opening where your heated/cooled air leaks out 24 hours a day. This is like leaving a window open all year round.

An easy, low-cost solution to this problem is to add an attic stair cover. An attic stair cover provides an air seal, reducing the air leaks. Add the desired amount of insulation over the cover to restore the insulation removed from the ceiling.

Fireplaces

Sixty-five percent, or approximately 100 million homes, in North America are constructed with wood or gas burning fireplaces. Unfortunately there are negative side effects that the fireplace brings to a home especially during the winter home-heating season. Fireplaces are energy losers.

Researchers have studied this to determine the amount of heat loss through a fireplace, and the results are amazing. One research study showed that an open damper on an unused fireplace in a well-insulated house can raise overall heating-energy consumption by 30 percent.

A recent study showed that for many consumers, their heating bills may be more than $500 higher per winter due to the air leakage and wasted energy caused by fireplaces.

Why does a home with a fireplace have higher heating bills? Hot air rises. Your heated air leaks out any exit it can find, and when warm heated air is drawn out of your home, cold outside air is drawn in to make up for it. The fireplace is like a giant straw sucking the heated air from your house.

An easy, low-cost solution to this problem is to add a fireplace draftstopper. Available from Battic Door, a company known for their energy conservation products, a fireplace draftstopper is an inflatable pillow that seals the damper, eliminating any air leaks. The pillow is removed whenever the fireplace is used, then reinserted after.

Clothes Dryer Exhaust Ducts

In many homes, the room with the clothes dryer is the coldest room in the house. Your clothes dryer is connected to an exhaust duct that is open to the outdoors. In the winter, cold air leaks in through the duct, through your dryer and into your house.

Dryer vents use a sheet-metal flapper to try to reduce this air leakage. This is very primitive technology that does not provide a positive seal to stop the air leakage. Compounding the problem is that over time, lint clogs the flapper valve causing it to stay open.

An easy, low-cost solution to this problem is to add a dryer vent seal. This will reduce unwanted air infiltration, and keep out pests, bees and rodents as well. The vent will remain closed unless the dryer is in use. When the dryer is in use, a floating shuttle rises to allow warm air, lint and moisture to escape.

For more information on Battic Door’s energy conservation solutions and products, visit www.batticdoor.com

About The Author

Mark D. Tyrol is a Professional Engineer specializing in cause and origin of construction defects. He developed several residential energy conservation products including an attic stair cover and a fireplace draftstopper. To learn more visit www.batticdoor.com.

mark@batticdoor.com

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

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Got Attic Mold? Lets Talk Energy Conservation!

 by: Mark D. Tyrol, P.E.

It happens to countless homeowners around the end of the year – you make the annual visit to your attic to collect the holiday decorations and what do you find? Spots and blotches covering the bottom of the roof sheathing. Worse yet – it turns out to be attic mold!

What does energy conservation have to do with mold in the attic? Well if you take a step back and consider how the house behaves as system, they are often directly related.

Building science experts have long been using the “house as a system” approach to diagnose the cause and origin of building defects.

For example, ice dams. These are often caused by warm air seeping into the attic which causes the snow and ice on the roof to melt. The water drains to the edge of the roof (which is colder than the rest of the roof because it is an overhang and not warmed by the attic), freezes and creates an ice dam. As this process is repeated daily, the ice dam grows larger. Eventually water is forced under a shingle where it can seep into the house.

Understanding how the house behaves as a system and the various causes and effects is necessary to diagnose most building related problems.

But how about that attic mold? How did it get there?

Mold requires chronic moisture to form and to thrive, so source(s) of moisture must be present. Possibly the moisture came from outdoors. The roof is newer and a quick check of the roof shows no obvious damage or leaks.

Possibly the moisture came from indoors. During the heating season, the interior of the house frequently has high moisture levels, especially bathrooms and kitchens. A quick check shows that all bathroom fans, kitchen vents, etc. are properly ducted completely outdoors and not into the attic. The amount of insulation looks good and the attic is well ventilated.

Don’t give up – you are almost there! Remember the house as a system? You know that warm, moist air is in the house, but how is it getting into the attic?

By air leaks! Air leaks are the leading source of energy loss in most houses, and a frequent source of chronic moisture that can cause attic mold. Most homeowners are well aware of air leaks around windows and doors (especially old ones), but many overlook the numerous gaps leading directly into the attic!

Have a look around the attic and you may find large gaps around recessed lights and fans, holes where wires or pipes are installed, even large gaps around the chimney. And don’t overlook the whole house fan and especially the folding attic stair - a big, uninsulated hole in your ceiling that is often overlooked!

These gaps can add up to a large hole that allows warm, moist air from the house to flow right into the cold attic. The warm moist air condenses on the cold roof sheathing, creating chronically damp conditions that can lead to attic mold growth. And the energy loss – it can be like leaving a window open all winter long!

Seal these air leaks and you stop a significant moisture source. And just think of all the energy you can save and the cold drafts you can stop!

About The Author

Mark D. Tyrol is a Professional Engineer specializing in cause and origin of construction defects. He developed several residential energy conservation products including an attic stair cover and a fireplace draftstopper. To learn more visit www.batticdoor.com.

mark@batticdoor.com

Source: http://www.365articles.com

Popularity: 4% [?]

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