Picket fences are a well known style of decorative landscape fencing, meant to enhance a flower garden and small lawn. They are best suited to smaller yards due to their smaller scale, and there are many designs to choose from. Another type, low decorative metal fences, usually set on top of a low masonry base, or strung from footing to footing, are also suited to small residential use.

Solid panel fences are appropriate for any application, depending on their height. Lower ones, sometimes as low as a foot or two, can be used as decorative landscaping borders, waist height ones to define public spaces (such as a front yard or patio), and tall ones are ideal privacy fences.

Chain or other non-decorative metal fencing is most often purely functional, intended as a security fence. It is rarely used in a decorative way due to its simple appearance and strong association with industrial or security purposes. It is unsuited to residential settings for this reason, except for use in pet enclosures inside attractively fenced yards.

If you have had issues with the bugs who are the vegetarians in your garden, and they won this year, you may want to look into ladybugs as the eco-friendly help you need in your garden for next years crop.  It’s those pesky produce eaters that cause all the insect problems as they munch on the leaves and roots of our beloved plants and literally suck the nutrients right out of them.

As delicate and friendly as the ladybugs look, they are carnivores.  This means they eat meat and the meat they eat are those vegetarians competing with you for your fresh vegetables.  You will want to make sure you read and follow any and all instructions that come with the ladybugs.  If you don’t, they will simply fly off to find a more inviting garden.  A simple search in Google will help you find out where ladybugs can be purchased.

Fall is the time to walk around your garden with a clip board.  If you do not have a garden journal, consider starting one now.  Think about successes you want to repeat and failures to remedy.  What projects do you want to conquer next year?  What items need to be repaired or replaced? 

What are some subjects you would like to study over the winter; possibly companion planting, planting by the moon cycles, or how to attract beneficial insects?  Refer back to your list when you visit the library, have extra time to research online, and when the new seed catalogs arrive. 

Another way to help beat the winter blues is to force some bulbs indoors.  Two popular and easy flowers are the Amaryllis and hyacinth.  Both can be purchased at a garden store in the fall.  There are special vases that are used to force hyacinths which can also be found in garden stores.

For years there has been a lot of money spent developing remedy’s to keep critters like deer, raccoons and rabbits out of your flowers and vegetable garden.  You may have tried several of them throughout the years.

Little did we know that a great solution was right on top of our heads.  Well, most peoples heads.  There are a few of us that are lacking up there so you’ll have to help us on this particular harvest.  It’s called human hair.  Looks like those pesky critters don’t much care for the stuff.

Now that we know what they don’t like all we have to do is out that out in the yard and flowerbeds and gardens to keep them out.  Sounds simple until you find out that you need freshly cut hair.  Don’t know about you but the little I do have doesn’t grow back that fast.  So what’s a thin haired guy to do?

Well, it looks like they don’t like dog hair either so if you see a bunch of badly shaven dogs…

If you throw your newspaper out or recycle it, you may want to save a few days worth to help control weeds in your flowerbeds.  You can use old newspapers to smother the weeds in and around the plants you actually want to grow.

There are several different ways to spread the newspapers.  One is to lay them out over the weeds and growth you don’t want in your flowerbeds and put about 3 to 4 inches of organic material over the newspapers.  It will take about a season for the newspapers to break down and, in the mean time; it rids your flowerbeds from the unwanted growth.

The other way works really well.  You wet the newspaper before you lay it out over the unwanted weeds and grass.  It tends to sty in its place while you lay it out and then cover it with the organic material or mulch.

Either way will work for you and it’s easy and you won’t have to pulls weeds for the rest of the year.  It’s even more exciting when you discover that next year you won’t have to pull them either.

Will it really be the tomatoes next time, the spinach, the peppers?  What will be the next salmonella outbreak and why some people will never be affected?

The answer to the first question is an easy one.  No one knows what food source will be infected with salmonella and potentially transferred to the tables of America.  No one knows because the powers that be from the FDA (Food & Drug Administration), congress and down, we no longer have the protections on our food source that we once had.

At least that’s what you’ve been told.  However, since the fifties more and more families have been giving up their gardens and buying everything from the local grocery store.  It is easy and mindless and is proving to be dangerous, which brings me to the people who will never be affected.

These are the gardeners in your neighborhood, your local farmers and those who purchase from the local farmers.  These people know where their food comes from, when it was picked and what chemicals, if any; have been used on their foods and they’re taking it to the next level.

For the first time you will see greenhouses going up like never before.  The modern greenhouse allows you to grow year-round and with the easy greenhouse kits, anyone can put one up in their backyard.  When you are growing your own, you won’t worry about the next outbreak because you won’t have too.

Most everyone knows the benefits of using newspapers to cover where you would like to place a garden to rid yourself of weeds, etc.  However, it’s also a great way to establish a floor for the spot you would like to place a greenhouse.

The first thing to do is determine where in your yard you have space that is also level.  Most greenhouse kits will need to be built on level ground.  Then determine how big your green house will be; do you prefer an 8 x 8 or maybe a 12 x 16?  You will need to know that in order to measure out the foundation for your home greenhouse.

Drive a stake in the ground at one corner and measure out your foundation from corner to corner (remember the size greenhouse you are getting) and stake the other three corners and pull the string tight revealing the exact size you will need for your foundation.  Always take a tape measure out and double check the measurements.

Lay out the newspaper (about 6 to 7 layers) to cover the entire area.  You can wet it in a bucket or have a water source handy to spray the paper to stay down as you lay it out.  Once you have it laid out it’s up to you what material you would like to have for a quick foundation.  You can choose an organic material such as mulch or a rock or gravel material.

The main things you will need to watch is to make sure the newspaper is totally smothered and can still get moisture.  You can also use newspapers underneath several kinds of flooring to keep your greenhouse floor nice and clear of weeds and unwanted grasses.

Three years ago I bent down to pick up a towel and my life has never been the same since.  It took a little more than two years to get back to where I can do most of what I did before in the garden but it is different and I do some preventative things to keep it that way.

I was an athlete in my younger years and as I got older I just assumed I would always be able to do certain things.  I was wrong.  What they say about assuming is true.  I now warm up before I do any kind of bending, lifting or moving things outside or in.  One of the main things I do is stretch and I stretch very well.

I watch what I lift and how I lift it.  I also know my limit and when to get some help and, I ask for it.  A back injury is a great equalizer in having a prideful attitude of I am stronger than…  It’s just not worth it.

If possible I avoid bending over a whole bunch while gardening, and when I do, I am careful to watch how I bend over.  One of the things that got me in trouble in the first place was years of compensating for an old knee injury and bending with my back and not my legs.  That was a mistake.

You may think this can never happen to you.  I understand that.  However, unless you need to be on your back for days at a time, go through painful physical therapy and be on medication that makes you sleep through half your days to learn how to treat your body, please take my word for it.  You only have one back, and if hurt; it hurts.

Looking out the back door; what do you see?  Are you one of those people who rewrap your old greenhouse frames with plastic every year?  You keep thinking; next year you’ll look into a more durable, sustainable, efficient covering for that frame that may last more than one season at a time.  If so, this is the time to start thinking about what’s going to happen to that old greenhouse once it has a new skin.

There are a lot of different coverings you can use to replace the old skin, from different plastics to glass.  They come in all shapes and sizes and are shipped from UPS to freight.  You can get one layer or double walled, custom to one size fits all and all you have to do is find the one that fit’s your frame and your budget.

If that sounds too hard, you can cover it again with cheap plastic and replaced it again next year.  It will tear, sweat, leak and mildew just like it always does.  You most likely pay more to cover that frame every year than it would be for a long term solution.  Some guaranteed up to 8 years.  Of course, you may like covering that thing every year.

I have recently been introduced to the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act that was enacted during the Clinton administration.  This act protects any donor, food bank, soup kitchen, food pantry or other group helping feed those in need, from liability.  This includes any food that is donated or distributed in “good faith” by anyone.

The reason you should be excited about knowing about this act is it enables you to give your garden overflow to those in need.  In fact, fresh produce is the most difficult and most needed items for food pantries and food banks to get their hands on and to stock.

If you have ever thought you wanted to be a part of the solution and didn’t know how, here is your chance.  Contact your local food bank and find out when and where they are collecting and take and donate your surplus produce.  If you don’t have a local food bank contact Second Harvest Food Bank as it is one of the largest food banks in the US.  Happy donating!