Downtown Homestead

Many people are curious to try camping for beginners, but actually getting started can seem difficult to those who have never gone. Camping really is fun even for beginners and amateurs. Read this beginners guide to camping for some easy tips on getting started without spending a lot of time and money. Camping for the First Time Above all else, a first-time camping trip must be relaxed and fun. An unsuccessful first-time trip may turn even the hardiest soul away from trying again. Therefore, do not try anything too challenging or try to fit too many activities into one trip. For a successful beginner camping experience, it is best to stay fairly close to home, go during nice weather, and plan to stay two nights. One night does not allow enough time to get organized and have fun. More than two nights can seem stressful if things are not going as planned. Also, allow at least two hours for initial camp setup, preferably when it is light outside. Beginner Camping Tips For those who h...

In this day of energy conservation and listening to the pleas of our dying, very damaged environment, we are all in need of tips on how we can live better without depleting our natural resources. One such tip involves planting more trees and living in a greener world, where plants can use their natural ability to turn carbon dioxide in the air into oxygen. Another tip involves conserving water and making sure that one of our most precious commodities is abundant enough to sustain life for all animals, plants, and humans. Thus exists a paradox: how can plants live on very little water if we must conserve it; and conversely, how can we conserve water well enough so that we can still allow plants to grow? Scientists are now hard at work trying to genetically engineer plants to grow with very little water, while still others are engineering important food crops to survive with no irrigation. While scientists are working in their laboratories, however, we can still do our part in conservin...

Can you imagine growing tasty veggies and fruit in your yard using just your lawnmower once every year or so? Talk about a minimal effort! You can do it with these plants. First, pick your patch. Select a sunny but out-of-the way area of your property that could be allowed to totally go to weeds (or already has). Start with a clean palate by preparing a bed as you normally would. Asparagus Patch . For asparagus, all of the work comes up front in the soil prep . Start your patch in Fall by Double-digging your rows about four feet apart. To double-dig, first till or break up the soil in your row. Shovel the tilled soil into a wheel barrow so that you have a ditch. Now till the bottom of the ditch. I’ll even take a fork, thrust it through the tilled soil at the bottom of the ditch and break up the ground beneath it. Mix in any soil amendments you have. Lay in the Asparagus crowns and recover with the dirt from the wheelbarrow. At this point ALL the hard work is done for the next seve...

Compost in the garden will improve your soil which in turn will reward you with strong plants that are better able to fend off droughts and diseases. Compost improves soil structure and drainage. It can also be used as a fertilizer or a mulch and it enhances the soil’s ability to absorb water. A stronger fertilizer for your garden is compost tea Best time to use compost tea In the middle of the growing season the initial soil enhancements may be somewhat depleted by continuing plant growth, plus the plants themselves may need a bit of a boost. This is especially true just as they are producing fruits and seeds for us such as cucumbers beginning to bear fruit or peas starting to swell in the pods. These are times of great energy use by the plants and a lift can help them produce a bumper crop. Compost tea is a great liquid fertilizer in these situations: There is no need to disturb the soil and dig in fertilizer, just pour it on. This is especially important for plants like cucumbe...

If you garden like I do, you stop at one of the local home improvement stores in the spring, and pick up six or eight tomato plants. You don’t worry much about the type of tomato, as long as the stems look strong and there are a lot of healthy green leaves on the plants that you put in your basket. For those of us who don’t discriminate much when we buy, we’re convinced that any plant producing a red tomato, big enough to make slices for hamburgers, will be fine. We may take a quick look at the label, and find some information about how large the plant is going to get, how much shade it would like to have, how much water it will need, and to see if the name is familiar. And almost all of the hybrid names are followed by several letters, each letter referring to some terrible disease that this particular hybrid has been created to avoid. Therefore, for guys like me, the more letters, the better. If all of my six plants grow to maturity, and produce even half of their full capacity, I’m ...

You don’t need a carpenter, painter, or some other professional every time you have a problem in your apartment, condo, or house. In fact, there are plenty of household repairs that you can do yourself with ease. Anyone can do these jobs, so don’t waste your money calling a professional on such small things. You won’t’ be putting yourself into any danger with these jobs, so don’t worry.   5 Simple DIY Home Repairs   Paint Jobs There’s a good mix between people who paint their own homes and those who hire others to do it. However, you should always be able to paint your own walls inside your home. The outside of the house should always be left to the experienced though. Anyways, painting the inside walls of a home a pretty simple. A person just has to go down to a store that sells high quality paint and choose the colors that they want. Most houses look best with multiple colors throughout the home, but they must mix well together or the interior will just look tacky. N...