Posts

When to Water Your Garden by Season The time of year and precipitation (or lack of it) impact the amount of water you may need to supply. Plants grow less quickly, if at all, during the cooler months, so they don’t require as much moisture to support their stems and leaves. But even cold-hardy trees, shrubs, and perennials, which are dormant in winter, still need hydration. Most areas of the country do experience some drought, so your job is to ease your plants through those dry spells....

**Tip: To warm tortillas, preheat oven to 350°F. Stack tortillas and wrap tightly in foil. Bake about 10 minutes or until heated through.

How to Make Disinfectant Wipes with Alcohol The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends alcohol as an effective cleaner to disinfect household surfaces. To make alcohol-based disinfectant wipes, use at least 70% rubbing alcohol (undiluted) for the most effective clean. Grab a roll of paper towels (or small kitchen cloths for reusable wipes) and an airtight container large enough to store them. You can cut the paper towel roll in half to fit if needed....

Get the recipe for Perfect Hash Browns here. Prepare Potatoes Peel potatoes, and coarsely shred them using a handheld shredder, a potato grater, or a food processor with a coarse shredding blade. Place shredded potatoes in a large bowl and add enough cool water cover them. Stir well. Drain in a colander. Repeat rinsing and draining two or three times until water runs clear. Drain again, pressing out as much water as possible with a rubber spatula....

1. Choose the Right Hydrangea Only the flowers of bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla) and mountain hydrangea (H. serrata) can change color. Other types like oakleaf hydrangeas (H. quercifolia) or smooth hydrangeas (H. arborescens) such as ‘Annabelle’, cannot change their flower colors, naturally blooming in white, cream, or dusty pink. These plants are just as full and beautiful, but if your goal is deep pink hydrangeas, make sure you’re planting varieties that can turn that color....

How to Make Zucchini Noodles with a Spiralizer The key to making twirly zucchini noodles is an inexpensive kitchen gadget known as a spiralizer. A spiralizer will cut your zucchini into long pasta-like strands. You can find both tabletop spiralizers ($48, OXO) with a hand crank or handheld spiralizers. To use, simply follow the manufacturer’s instructions (no need to peel!). Trim both ends to give an even surface for anchoring the zucchini to the handle and blade, and use even pressure when turning the handle to push the zucchini through the blade....

How to Cut a Pomegranate According to the folks at POM Wonderful (and the pros in our Test Kitchen), this is the best way to cut a pomegranate. Step 1: Cut and Score the Pomegranate Using a sharp knife ($16, Target), cut off the top of the pomegranate approximately ½-inch from the crown. Once you remove the top, you’ll find four to six sections of the pomegranate divided by a white membrane (pith) are visible....

Ask for help: This is the one part of a pantry purge where kids can pitch in. Get them to move everything (and we do mean everything) from the pantry onto a nearby section of countertop or a table. Clean up: The last time you wiped down your pantry shelves was probably when you moved in, so now is a good time to give the shelves, walls, and floor a once-over to remove dust, cobwebs, and wayward Cheerios....

Cut Flower Favorite Stock your bulb cutting garden with elegant lily-flowering tulips and enjoy creating bouquets as soon as the temperatures warm next spring. Other tulips to consider include bold triumph tulips, parrot tulips, all types of daffodils, hyacinths, and summer snowflake (Leucojum spp.). Your bouquets will boast a symphony of welcome color after a long winter, and also add sweet fragrance to a room. Lily-Flowering Tulip Care Must-Knows Like all tulip bulbs, lily-flowering tulips require well-drained soil and at least 6 hours of bright sunlight per day....

Moonflower, devil’s trumpet, jimsonweed, and thorn apple are just a few of the many common names for this self-seeding annual. As the name “moonflower“ suggests, many varieties open at night. Long, white petals slowly unfurl as the evening comes. When morning arrives, the flowers curl up, reverting to their closed form. While the nocturnal blooms of moonflower are certainly breathtaking, the gray-green tropical-looking leaves are another attractive feature of this plant....

Rainbow corn is grown primarily for its colorful kernels, and it exploded in popularity back in 2012 when a photo of the rainbow-colored ears went viral. But rainbow corn is much, much older than that. Carl Barnes, an Oklahoma farmer, started planting ancient varieties of corn as a way of connecting to his Cherokee heritage. A mix of a few different varieties of corn eventually produced a couple of multicolored cobs, which he showcased at a native plant gathering in the mid-1990s....

If the brick has lost its glaze, it’s vulnerable to water migrating into its body. Seal the brick with a clear sealer. Chipped brick is also a tip-off that water has intruded and frozen. Treat a chipped brick as you would a damaged brick—replace it. If you have ivy growing up the wall, its tendrils won’t damage mortar that’s in good repair, but the foliage can hide potential problems. Check the wall in the spring before leaves appear....

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds Before you begin preparing pumpkin seeds, you’ll need to choose a pumpkin that suits the number of seeds you want to munch on. You can use the seeds from either a carving pumpkin or smaller pie pumpkins. For 1 cup of seeds, purchase a 10- to 14-pound pumpkin. Test Kitchen Tip: You can also use this method to roast seeds from winter squashes, such as butternut squash or acorn squash....

You also need to decide how large your Christmas house display will be. You may just be executing an around-the-gutters-and-eaves operation, or you might want to consider something a little more intricate for your outdoor Christmas decorations. No matter how simple or complex, it helps to have a plan. Our step-by-step guide to DIY Christmas light hanging can help you develop a custom design that will work for every holiday season....

And this season, there are some people who could use a little extra love. So, I found a few extra people to add to my Valentine’s Day card list: Patients at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and seniors living in long-term care facilities. Due to ongoing health risks and COVID-19 protocols, both groups will spend Valentine’s Day inside their respective facilities this year, likely with restricted visitors. Luckily, there are a few easy ways you can send some Valentine’s Day cheer to them....

Learn the best mattress cleaning methods, where to place one, plus what not to do when moving your bed to storage. These steps will help you properly store a mattress to prevent damage. 1. Ensure the Mattress is Clean First, thoroughly clean the mattress so you can rest assured it comes out of storage in the same condition. After stripping it of pillows and linens, inspect for any stains. It’s generally not recommended to use heavy-duty commercial products on a mattress, such as an upholstery cleaner....

Follow along as we walk you through sanding manually with a block. Although there are other methods, manual sanding is best suited for small projects that require only a little bit of sanding, such as smoothing a single piece of wood or touching up a larger project. For bigger jobs, we recommend renting a power sander, like an orbital sander, belt sander, or palm sander. Step 1: Choose Sandpaper Before you start sanding, pick the appropriate sandpaper grit for your project....

Poinsettias as Cut Flowers Once a poinsettia leaves the pot, it’s free to spread its wings in new places. For example, you can place several cuttings of various colors in a vase to make a colorful addition to a mantel. Or tuck the stems into floral picks, those water-filled tubes that cut flowers come in, and nestle them into holiday wreaths or Christmas trees. Get our helpful tips for creating a poinsettia flower arrangement that will last up to two weeks....

The ball drops at midnight, signaling the start of a new year, but the celebration begins much earlier than that—and crowds typically camp out in Times Square all day in anticipation of the event. This year’s New Year’s Eve program begins at 6 p.m. EST on December 31 and will run through the ball drop at midnight. How to Watch the Ball Drop If you don’t plan to make the trek to Times Square this season, you can tune in to the ball drop and six-hour broadcast from anywhere in the world....