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Tips to Keep Rodents and Wildlife Out of the Garden

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Gardening Tips
Tips to Keep Rodents and Wildlife Out of the Garden

Gardening is a rewarding pastime that requires a lot of hard work. It takes months of tender loving care for your fruits and vegetables to ripen. Finding that your plants have been eaten or damaged by wildlife after so much time is a truly disheartening experience. Try implementing the following tips to stop animals from raiding your garden.

Cover Your Plants

Covering your plants with row covers or netting will help prevent flies and wildlife from getting inside. They will also continue to let the sunshine in. You can purchase these in hardware stores or online. Ultrafine mesh covers are great for keeping rodents out.

For bonus protection, consider building a raised garden bed. The higher it is off the ground, the better. Skunks will have a hard time climbing into the bed, and you can stop rodents from digging underneath by lining them with mesh. You can also install hinged covers that you can open and close when gardening. Raised beds are great for city gardening and extend the length of the growing season by keeping the soil warm.

Build a Fence

Like raised beds, you can help keep animals out of the garden by surrounding your plants with a fence. A soft, mesh fence is difficult for skunks and raccoons to climb and can be set up temporarily. If rabbits, deer, or marmots are giving you trouble, you can alternatively set up an electric fence. You can find electric wires that emit just enough voltage to scare away wildlife in most hardware stores. These can also be set up temporarily.

Get Rid of Other Food Sources

Skunks, rats, raccoons, and other animals are drawn to yards where they can find food. Get rid of the bird feeder and store your seeds and gardening materials in a shed. Make your garbage cans and recycling bins inaccessible, as well. Use lidded receptacles and store them in the garage or shed until collection day. You should also clean them out with vinegar every few weeks to make them unappealing to wildlife. Always clean up after a meal outside, and don’t leave any pet food out.

Use Apple Cider Vinegar and Spices

Pests dislike the smell of apple cider vinegar because it is similar to predator urine. It is also effective at repelling ants because it covers up their scent trails. Soak some rags in apple cider vinegar and place them in sandwich bags, then poke holes in the bags and place them around the garden. Next, try mixing one part apple cider vinegar with one part water and spraying the sides of the garden to keep bugs out. You can also spray your plants directly by diluting the vinegar further. This works best when the weather is warm, sunny, and dry.

Mice and rats especially dislike cayenne pepper and red pepper flakes. Sprinkle some of these spices in the garden to ward them off. You can also make a hot pepper spray by mixing one tablespoon of hot sauce with a gallon of water and a drop of dish soap. Spray the mixture around the edges of the garden.

Set Up Motion-activated Deterrents

There are all kinds of electronic deterrents out there. Some flashlights make high-pitched sounds or spray water when an animal comes near. Try installing one or two motion-activated repellents in the garden to encourage the animals to leave. These can be purchased from hardware stores, home supply stores, or online retailers.

Hire a Wildlife Remover or Pest Control Professional

If there is an animal living on your property and you want it removed, call a professional for help. They have the tools and know-how to remove them safely. Attempting to remove an animal yourself could result in injury and risks separating a mother from her young. And you definitely don’t want to get sprayed by a skunk!

If you have been dealing with rats, the problem won’t go away without professional intervention. Rats are common in city gardens and spread from one area to the next. Call The Exterminators in Peterborough or near you. A technician can set up bait stations for you and service them regularly to keep the rodent population under control. This won’t harm your garden or the other species in the neighborhood.

Conclusion

Growing produce without attracting wildlife is a bit tricky, but it can be managed with a combination of the tricks above. Remember to restrict the animals’ access to food – keep as much as you can out of reach. If it’s too much, call a professional for help. They can get rid of pests and help keep them out by excluding the garden for you.

How to Deal with Mosquitoes in Your Garden

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How to Deal with Mosquitoes in Your Garden

Almost 700 million people become ill because of illnesses caused by mosquitoes every year, while more than a million of them die. Therefore, it’s not surprising why many people are adamant about figuring out ways to eliminate mosquitoes in their gardens and around their homes.

Still, prevention proves to be the best way since it can be hard to control mosquitoes if they have a very large population. If you’re wondering how to manage mosquitoes in the garden, then we’ve got just the right tips for you.

How to Protect Yourself

When working in the yard, make sure that you protect your exposed skin. You can cover it by wearing a long-sleeved shirt and long pants. Wearing shoes, socks, a hat, and gloves can also provide extra protection.

You can even use different mosquito killer sprays on your clothes. For this, you can choose a spray with diethyltoluamide, a chemical known as Deet in different concentrations. Though further research is still needed on how safe Deet is, it is generally safe to use low concentrations. However, rather than applying it to the skin, you have to apply it to your clothing for mosquito protection instead.

You can also purchase shirts that have a fabric infused with mosquito repellent. You don’t have to worry about washing these shirts since the repellent will be effective even if you launder them many times. You can also use lotions and sprays for mosquito protection on your skin. Get ones with citrus oil, such as wipes that you can rub on your skin.

If you don’t want to use chemicals, you can opt for a Bug Baffler shirt which can cover you from the head down to your waist. It is also made from a very fine mesh material to help prevent mosquitoes and flies from coming near you. Moreover, it is more comfortable than a long-sleeved shirt as you can move more freely when working in your garden.

How to Prevent Mosquitoes

Mosquito prevention is more effective and important than protection. Just keep in mind that you don’t have to protect yourself too much if you can control the mosquito population even before they invade your garden.

You can remove standing water from drain outlets everywhere and anywhere in your house to get rid of their breeding sites. You can also use citronella since it is known to protect you from mosquitoes. You can opt to get citronella torches with oil or candles and place them in small areas in your home, such as the patio, when you have guests over.

Placing an electric fan on your patio or porch also works because mosquitoes and flies hate wind.

Conclusion

Always remember to also practice protective and preventive measures even inside your home. Don’t wait before it’s too late before you start acting. As early as possible, get rid of their breeding grounds to ensure they won’t multiply. This way, you can enjoy a mosquito-free backyard and property.

How to Attract Hedgehogs into Your Garden

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How to Attract Hedgehogs into Your Garden

Hedgehogs are innocent little furry creatures that are not harmful to humans. Generally, hedgehogs will get scared and will run away from humans, or they will curl up into a spiky ball. However, their spikes can penetrate the skin and may cause a little discomfort.

Despite their timid demeanor, the hedgehog population has been declining. According to a report in Britain, the population of hedgehogs has fallen by about 50 percent. With this knowledge, we should take certain actions to increase the hedgehog population. This can be done by attracting them to friendly gardens and giving them a home.

However, hedgehogs don’t just wander around your garden normally. There are things you must do to make your garden hedgehog-friendly. Here are some tips that will certainly help attract hedgehogs into garden hedgehog houses.

Before we dive deeper into the different ways of how to attract hedgehogs into your garden, let’s watch some interesting watch about these little animals.

5 Ways to Attract Hedgehogs into Your Garden

1. Create Pathways for The Hedgehogs

While you may want to fence your property to ensure privacy, this may keep the hedgehogs out. So, how do you invite them in? First, you need to create a pathway that will allow your hedgehogs to get into your garden.

Also, by creating hedgehog holes, you are allowing these furry little creatures to enter your garden. A hedgehog hole allows the hedgehog to travel from garden to garden. At night, hedgehogs usually travel around 1 mile. They like to stay near the edges as they feel much safer. Nonetheless, they will also wander around from time to time. During the breeding season, males can go about 2 miles.

The best way to create these pathways is to set up a meeting with your neighbors and devise a plan or come up with an agreement to create hedgehog pathways. The right pathways will undoubtedly attract hedgehogs to your garden.

2. Build a Hedgehog Home

You can also attract hedgehogs into garden hedgehog houses by building one for them.

You can build hedgehog houses by yourself, or you can buy hog houses from different online shops. If you opt to go DIY, you can randomly pile logs and add some leaves to the box.

For an average size garden, perhaps 2 to 3 hedgehog houses are best. Place the box in your garden under the garden shed or thick vegetation. Ultimately, you need to create a safe nesting for your hedgehog. Although these shelters are specifically made for hedgehogs, they can add any aesthetic to your garden. These hedgehog houses can be very decorative, depending on your creativity.

3. Avoid Noisy Places

If you are looking to attract hedgehogs, you should know that they require peace. This is especially true during the day since this is their sleeping time, and they need some quiet.

Therefore, when creating a good hedgehog home, make sure that it is far from busy roadways, businesses, or construction sites. Also, children and noisy dogs can scare them away.

4. Supplement Them with Food and Water

This is very obvious, but this is still worth noting. Hedgehogs need a lot of water, and supplying enough will attract them into your garden. For food, you can use cat or dog pellets to supplement their natural diet. Also, make sure that you put a bowl of water in your garden.

If you already have a hedgehog house, you can leave it somewhere close to it. This is also to encourage them to stay there. During the cold months, you may have to change the water supply regularly as it may get frozen if it gets too cold.

5. Do Not Disturb Them During Hibernation

This is pretty tricky since it is very hard to determine whether a hedgehog is hibernating in your garden or not. However, you need to resist the temptation to disturb the hedgehog if you find that it is hibernating in your garden. Just leave them be and let them hibernate. Usually, hedgehogs hibernate during November and March.

Final thoughts

Being at the top of the food chain, human beings are quite unchallenged by most species. However, this does not mean that we should pay attention to other living things, especially those declining in population. Hedgehogs are not harmful and deserve to live well and populate. The above tips can help you attract hedgehogs into garden hedgehog houses.

How to Make Natural Paint Using Leftover Fruits and Veggies

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How to Make Natural Paint Using Leftover Fruits and Veggies

Did you know that you can turn your food leftovers into natural paint? According to The experts you heard it right! By simply adding a little bit of creativity plus patience, you can convert every leftover fruits and veggies to an art material your toddlers would love. Let’s get started.

Things You Need:

  • For green dye, prepare Swiss chard, kale, and spinach
  • For orange dye, prepare orange peels, carrot, and onion skins (yellow)
  • For red dye, prepare beets, strawberry, raspberry, or grenade
  • For blue dye, prepare blackberry, red cabbage, or blueberry

To make a fruity paint, here’s what you need to do:

First, get a small saucepan then mix each cup of vegetable or fruit along with two cups of water. Set the heat to medium. Wait for it to simmer within an hour. Don’t forget to switch off the cooker. Let the water cool down. After that, pour and filter the juice in a container.

On the other hand, to make a veggie paint, you need to blend a teaspoon of dye with 6 tablespoons of sugar. Repeat the second and third procedures.

Improve Your Room’s Curb Appeal With This Paint

Now that you have a new set of natural paint, you can grab this opportunity to bond with your kids. Improve your room’s curb appeal with a personalized and dramatic result by giving your interior a fresh coat of paint.

It can also bring harmony in your room spaces by complementing the color of your furniture, paintings, floors, ceiling, and other things inside your abode. Furthermore, an appealing room paint does not only boost the visual aesthetic of your home, but it also has the capability to promote positive and relaxing moods.

On top of that, it will give your kids a chance to show off their creative side through house painting. Let them draw to their heart’s content.

Natural Paint Can Help Keep Surfaces Protected

Aside from covering up stains, marks, and other imperfections, room paint can excellently protect your walls from further damages. Both your exterior and interior walls are subject to corrosion and detrimental effects of aging despite your best effort to maintain them. To cover up these imperfections and touch up your room’s surfaces, painting will be a good choice.

Final Words

There you have it – quick and easy ways on you can turn your food leftovers to good art materials. This may not just save you extra cash, but it will also help you enhance your child’s skills.

Don’t just limit yourself to making beautiful paintworks. As much as you could, try experimenting with your own way of decorating your furniture. Begin with applying your favorite colors or by mixing this natural paint that will add dimension to your furniture surface.

For cabinets, for example, make your personal blend of colors by applying a light color on the exterior & dark shade inside or vice versa. You can either use a dark-colored shade on its interior. However, the color preference still depends on your own choice – you just need to freely do it yourself.

Farmers Market Convention

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Farmers Market Convention

On a quarterly basis, we host an event where farmers, partners, and customers can exchange information about how to buy, sell, and trade their products. We provide booths, snacks and refreshments, and a safe, comfortable space for the public. These are organized in different venues around the area, and people of all ages are welcome to join.

We also partner with professionals from all over the country to host workshops/seminars or sponsor our event. The event is free of charge and is open to the public. For concessionaire applications or partnership proposals, contact us to discuss your ideas.

Organic Farming Innovation

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Organic Farming Innovation

The CSA Farms has been awarded and duly acknowledged by the Farm Alliance for our innovative organic farming methods presented on this website. With their support, we have offered our team trips to various farms, homesteads, and plantations so they can further explore, discover, and study vegetable farming.

Additionally, we continue to develop new knowledge to share with the community. FA invites members of the Earth Association (UK) annually, so we can receive real-time consultation from fellow professionals. They also collaborate with us to provide free e-books and webinars about the food and farming industry.

Eco-Friendly Drive

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Eco-Friendly Drive

In an effort to continuously promote sustainability, some farms gather junks from different farm’s partner establishments and customers then recycle them on their farm. Last year, CSA farms gathered plastic bottles to create “Ecobricks” and donated them to non-profit organizations or groups to use as furniture or construction projects.

During the previous years, CSA farms also collected food waste and used them to create compost and deliver them to nearby farms in our area. The possibilities are endless, and this project helps farms prove how important sustainability is. If you have an idea for any upcoming eco-friendly drives, please let us know!