Articles from February 2019

Are the Stalks or Stems of Ruby Red Swiss Chard Poisonous?

Wine Cellars
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Ruby red Swiss chard (Beta vulgaris “Ruby Red”) complements several garden designs using its large crinkly green leaves that add texture and bright colour to late-fall gardens in which it rises round in mild winters. It gives new, easy-to-grow nutritional greens throughout the growing season. As this has a cheerful appearance, ruby red Swiss chard also packs nutritional value similar to the popular garden yearly, spinach. Both the leaves and the bright crimson stalks are edible.

Often Confused With Rhubarb

Although Swiss chard isn’t poisonous, all parts of the plant — including the stalks and leaves — contain some oxalic acid that can crystallize in people sensitive to oxalic acid, forming oxalate urinary tract stones. This may be a concern particularly in those with kidney and gallbladder issues. Confusion around its toxicity may also abound because Ruby red Swiss chard leaves resemble those of the perennial rhubarb (Rheum rhabarbarum), that grows in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 to 7. Rhubarb leaves — although not other parts of the rhubarb — contain high levels of oxalic acid and are considered poisonous.

Grow It

Many varieties of Swiss chard are available for gardeners. All are grown as annuals, but ruby red Swiss chard has turned into among the most popular for both gardeners and landscapers. Sow “Ruby Red” seeds in containers, vegetable gardens and flower beds in spring, after the last frost. If you plan to harvest entire plants, continue to plant seeds during late summer, suggest the experts on Cornell University’s internet Gardening Guide. It’s a vigorous grower and, even if harvested often, this plant will provide months of tasty treats.

Harvest It

Gently harvest Swiss chard to support leaf production. Once the leaves reach a height of 10 inches, outer leaves may be removed and cooked or added to your salad. The entire plant may be harvested by cutting on the very best. Catch 2 inches and the plant will regrow from that foundation. Young leaves, particularly thinned seedlings, can be added to salads.

Cook It

Cook and revel in eating both the leaves and stalks. The leaves have an earthy flavor while the stalks are a little tart. The leaves may be blanched, steamed or stir fried; the stalks are excellent on pizza and in soups, sauces and stews. Chop and mix Swiss chard leaves and comes with ancient spring greens for a very simple salad. Many enjoy steaming mixtures of greens with a little bacon fat. After harvesting, carefully rinse before cooking, as Swiss chard frequently conceals silt in its wrinkled leaves.

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How Do I Prune a Race?

Tropical Style
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Rushes (Juncus spp.) Tend to grow in moist or wet soil in areas with complete sun. Common rush (Juncus effusus) and also propagating rush (Juncus patens), both of which develop in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 4 through 9, are sometimes grown as ornamental plants but they can become invasive in some areas. Rushes need periodic pruning to look their very best.

Pruning Needs

Rushes stay evergreen in mild climates where temperatures rarely dip below freezing. The plants form clumps of erect green stems. Common rush flowers in midsummer, while spreading rush may blossom anytime from late spring through late summer. When the plants go completely dormant for winter, the stems will yellow and then turn brown in late fall or early winter. Plants that go dormant require complete pruning every year, while those that remain green only need a light trim.

The Right Tools

Pruning shears and rubber gloves will take care of any pruning requirements. Shears are only necessary once the rush requires a complete cutting back. Prior to using the shears, wipe the blades using isopropyl alcohol to disinfect them, and then wash them each time you move to the another plant. Although rush stems are not annoying and the stems of common rush are soft, you must wear gloves for light annual pruning because the rubber gloves hold the rush leaf much better. Use complete rubber gloves or cloth gardening gloves with latex, nitrile or rubber finger and palm pads.

A Light Trim

Individual stems inside a clump of evergreen rush die annually, while the main clump stays healthy and green. In late summer, remove the dead material to enhance the clump’s appearance. Put on the rubber gloves and comb through the leaf together with your fingers, gently pulling on the stems. The gloves will grip the dead stems, which easily pull free from the foundation of the plant. You can repeat this at any moment during the summer and spring growing season if there are a large number of dead stems combined in with the dwelling.

Rejuvenation Time

In locations where hurry dies back each winter, cut the whole clump with disinfected shears in late winter or early spring. Evergreen clumps only have to be cut every three or four years in late winter, or when they start to look sparse and ragged. Cut all the leaf stems right back to a 1 inch tall, removing and disposing of the dead foliage. New growth will emerge in the base of the plant when growth resumes in spring.

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Issue of Hydroponic Cucumbers

Tropical Style
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Hydroponic culture involves growing plants in nutrient solutions, without using artificial substrates like rockwool, peat or sand to give support for root development. Cucumbers (Cucumis sativa) grow well and have few difficulties under house gardening hydroponic conditions. They are a common business greenhouse hydroponic crop worldwide. Cucumbers are hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 9 through 11, though they are usually grown as annuals.

Substrate Choice

Choosing a substrate isn’t difficult. Cucumbers grow acceptably in almost every substrate accessible to hydroponics, besides being able to grow in just nutrient solution. However, studies have indicated that hydroponic cucumbers are more sensitive to drought stress when grown on polyurethane foam rather than rockwool.

Nutrients

Hydroponics pro Dr. Howard Resh suggests that dwelling growers utilize general hydroponic formulations rather than creating a specific formulation, which can be harder. Easily obtainable non-specific formulations still give satisfactory production.Avoid problems by using hydroponic fertilizers rather than general-purpose fertilizers. According to B. A. Kratsky of the University of Hawaii, hydroponic fertilizers contain proper amounts of nutrients and also help stabilize the nutrient solution’s acidity and alkalinity. He proposes adding 1/2 pound of a hydroponic fertilizer which has an N-P-K ratio of 10-8-22, plus 2 ounces of magnesium sulfate to ten gallons of water. An alternative mixture utilizes 3 ounces of a 3-16-36 hydroponic fertilizer, 3 oz of soluble level potassium nitrate and 2 ounces of magnesium sulfate.

Cucumber Varieties

Home gardeners can grow most types of cucumber hydroponically. Consider interesting cultivars like lemon cucumbers, apple cucumbers, Lebanese cucumbers, and the newer, little, sweet Beit Alpha cucumbers. A problem with old, open-pollinated cucumber varieties is the fruit can get bitter if left too long on the vine before you choose it or when the plant gets stressed. To duplicate commercially grown hydroponic antioxidants, develop hybrid that are parthenocarpic — producing seedless fruit without fertilization — and thin-skinned, like “European” and “Long English,” also sometimes called Dutch-type cucumbers. These are more difficult to grow because they need continuous, careful training and pruning to grow and produce well.

Temperature and Light

Hydroponic cucumbers need high to medium light levels and warm temperatures, so growing difficulties can happen during cloudy or cool weather. Dutch-type Herbs need temperatures between 60 to 82 degrees Fahrenheit.Good growth takes place when daytime temperatures are between 75 to 80 degrees F and night temperatures don’t fall below 65 degrees F. Beit Alpha cucumbers have a larger temperature range, tolerating temperatures between 50 and 100 degrees F. If you don’t have a greenhouse with temperature and light control, grow hydroponic cucumbers throughout the summer when appropriate conditions occur.

Plant Size

A downside to hydroponic cucumbers is the fact that most are big plants. Space hydroponic growing containers so cucumbers don’t crowd each other. In restricted distance, trellis the plants or grow bush-type cultivars. In commercial greenhouses of Dutch-type cucumbers, growers stretch a cable over the row of cucumbers and dangle lengths of twine to the top of the growing containers, pruning and shaping the vine on the twine and cable.

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Give Your Porch Some Rustic Fall Style

Fireplaces
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Fall is here, and with it a fresh season of action as a prelude to the holidays. If you can find a free afternoon, spend just a couple hours sprucing up your porch or patio with seasonal soul before your trick-or-treaters arrive.

Corynne Pless

General Fall Porch Style

Natural textures layered next to found items can make a comfy outdoor seat for seeing the leaves change. Employing a hay bale as a temporary coffee table is an inexpensive and functional approach to cozy up your outdoor area. Try using a little tray or basket as a solid, level surface to hold a drink or book.

Here, a rustic chair doubles as a side table to get a vintage cola crate holding pink mums.

Corynne Pless

Make more tin cans with paint and fill them with your favourite seasonal flowers. A generous neighbor let me select these from her garden. Utilize your order to freshen up any space, from an entry to a tabletop.

The best way to Produce a beautifully untamed floral arrangement

Corynne Pless

Corynne Pless

A wood crate provides additional display space and storage. A stack of old paperbacks reinforces some mini pumpkins. Lavender sprigs in a vintage milk jug add a nice aroma and elevation to a wooden-crate-turned-side-table.

Corynne Pless

Straightforward Burlap Pillow Cover

Burlap or linen sacks make for an easy pillow cover throughout the vacations. This little burlap sack was among the “I will find something to with this one day” items that found a brand new (and temporary) function as our porch swing cushion. If you don’t own one, you can simply cut some burlap to length and sew up one.

Corynne Pless

Stuff your pillow to the sofa and tuck leftover fabric to the open end, hiding the pillow inside.

Corynne Pless

Wrap a ribbon around the sofa and tie it. Obviously, if you are using an indoor pillow as the filler, then bring your pillow indoors if the weather gets too damp.

Corynne Pless

How are you currently sprucing up your porch this year? Let us know and discuss a photograph in the Comments.

More guides to fall and Thanksgiving decorating

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Landscaping Magic Fixes a Dangerous Sloped Yard

Eclectic Homes
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Landscape architect Michael Glassman usually has to walk a home before he starts to analyze a site’s challenges. However, when he visited Larry and Beth Goldberg’s home in Sacramento, California, he was not out of the car before the problems became evident. “I could not find somewhere to park,” he says. “The home is on an incline, and the road goes up a hill, which people race down. You take your life in your hands out of your car if you park on that street.”

Here’s how Glassman opened the landscape and made it function for the family.

Before Photo

The driveway had been heaved up by A large hapberry tree. Weeds had taken over the yard. The home itself was a “bizarre yellow shade, and that I didn’t have any clue where the front door was,” Glassman says. “There clearly was a hokey stucco wall, definite measures, stepping stones over there, weeds everywhere and erosion issues.”

See this sloped yard’s transformation

AFTER: Glassman first addressed the parking situation. He created an ingenious parking bay that allows guests to pull right up into the front part of the home, safely off the road. And because guests didn’t know where to enter the home before, frequently drifting into a driveway-side entrance instead of the front door, Glassman established a clear route to the entryway.

Steps today lead directly from the parking bay to the front door, and there is a terrace with a water feature. To take care of the erosion issues, Glassman installed acid-stained-steel retainer walls that terrace the landscape. He then took the Goldbergs on a trip to the nursery to hand pick plants trees and blossoms for the home.

Michael Glassman & Associates

The tree on the right is a crape myrtle, the only one on the house. On the left of this is a purple smoke tree. Reddish barberry plants operate their way.

The grayish tree on the far left is a fruitless olive, among three. The spiky dark bronze plant below it is a flax. The green pots hold kangaroo paw, sedum, succulents and Red-Hot Poker.

Michael Glassman & Associates

The tree nearest the parking bay is your myrtle, revealed here. The one to the right is another fruitless olive. A little ollie and an ice-blue shore juniper adorn the steel corner in the foreground. Ornamental grasses fill from the remainder. The plants repeat in odd numbers throughout the raised beds.

See this sloped yard’s transformation

More: Find plants for your dream landscape | Find a landscape builder near you

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Kitchen Storage Solutions for Every Nook

Kitchen Guides
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Today’s smart kitchen designers have storage options to fulfill every nook and cranny in a variety of kitchens. These helpers can allow you to take advantage of every inch.

When you are grappling with backsplash material choices, consider something that can help you snag some excess storage, also. This stunning kitchen includes a secret that warms up the storage possibilities without taking away from its tidy look.

The designers put shelving and installed sliding doors in the marble backsplash behind the stove. The beauty of the technique is that you can achieve the best of both worlds — a beautiful backsplash and storage.

Hint: You’ll need to have enough space in your walls to make this work, which means you’ll need to get this discussion quite early on with your contractor.

Glenvale Kitchens

Corner dividers are a excellent alternative to the lazy Susan. Cut on a diagonal, they simply pull out like standard drawers to make use of an otherwise hard-to-reach corner space.

Hint: Have your drawers made in varying sizes to keep things organized. Pot lids and smaller items may go in the smaller drawers, and containers and pots and pans at the larger drawers.

Bill Fry Construction – Wm. H. Fry Const. Co..

If you would rather a cabinet door in the corner of a pedestal cabinet, and you don’t like Susans, sliding and rotating shelves might help you access corners with ease.

Hint: Unlike corner drawers, these pullouts may be installed in both upper and lower cabinets.

Chris Donatelli Builders

Even the toe kick area wasted space, can be utilized for storage when you add a shallow drawer for smaller items.

Gibson Gimpel Interior Design

Hint: you’ll have to bend a whole lot to get a toe kick space, so look at storing items here you’ll need to access only one or two times a year — such as serving dishes, chargers and holiday napkins.

Designs for Living, Tineke Triggs

Open shelving is often the most budget-friendly method to deal with the space left in the ends of upper and lower cabinets. If custom cabinets are in your finances, shutting those shelves with a curved doorway is a great way to keep things neat and clean without installing two separate doors to cover the corner.

Al Williams

Go beyond basic shelving for your foundation cabinetry. Today’s kitchen organization additions come in every kind imaginable to help you form and store your belongings. Utilize a mix of slide-out drawers and shelving to get heavy items, and custom pullouts to house mixers, spices, cutting boards and baking sheets.

Starline Cabinets

The end cabinets in a kitchen layout get fitted with a doorway facing for a look. The homeowner has found a smart space for keys, a pegboard and a dry erase board for notes and to-do lists, and installed slats for magazines and cookbooks.

See more guides about where to store your own kitchen materials

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Eclectic Homes
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I’ve written before about laundry room envy, however laundry rooms that pull double duty as office spaces, potting areas, wrapping stations and more take it to a whole new level.

It makes total sense to squeeze some additional use in the laundry space, as it is most likely designed for durability and already outfitted with plumbing. And if you’re fortunate enough to have an island for folding, they can moonlight as flat surfaces for wrap presents, arranging flowers or doing almost any other job you can imagine.

Have a look at these laundry rooms have enlarged their role with grace.

Rock Paper Hammer

Mudroom. What is more efficient than having a washer and dryer at precisely the exact same room where dirty socks, wet gloves and soiled jackets land? This attractively incorporated space does a decent job of keeping the laundry stack to a dull roar. Bonus points to get that gorgeous sky-blue ceiling, a trick borrowed from the traditional front-porch technique.

Linen cupboard. Tucked into a shore home, this laundry room also houses towels and other gear for days at the sand and surf.

Case Design/Remodeling, Inc..

Office. Do your laundry while you pay bills or response messages, and you’re going to check two tasks off your list at the same time. The cushioned benches are an extra-nice touch — you could stretch out and read or rest while the washer spins.

Crisp Architects

Potting room. Make the most of the pipes lines set up and put in another sink for watering plants, washing empty containers and draining garden tools.

Crestline Homes

Wrapping channel. It can be challenging to find a flat expanse of space large enough to allow for wrapping gifts easily. Laundry rooms lend themselves to roomy countertops for both wrap and folding.

HARDROCK CONSTRUCTION

Breakfast nook. What a wonderful beginning to the day: a cup of coffee and a muffin or scone in this light-filled space, with the comforting scent of clean laundry in the air.

Whitten Architects

Pantry. The interior design in this combination laundry room and pantry makes for an especially smart utilization of space.

Smith & Vansant Architects PC

Pet area. This laundry space incorporates a custom dog shower, convenient if you have the square footage. However, you don’t need to be that elaborate. Just add a comfy dog bed, litter box or other designated place for your furry family members.

Dave Adams Photography

All-purpose room. This lovely, comfy laundry space adapts nevertheless it is needed — as a butler’s pantry, potting channel and much more. It is so attractive that I would probably just hang out in there with a novel while the laundry was going.

Who has the hardest-working laundry room in land? Publish your photo here!

Photos: Locate your favorite laundry room design

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Conduit

Energy
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Electricians refer to the rigid pipe that electric wires and wires run through as conduit. “Conduit” has lots of different definitions too, all associated with channeling; it can be an enclosed duct to transfer liquids or even a individual or vessel that communicates a message from one spot to another.

Julie Ranee Photography

Electrical conduit is typically visible only in houses in which the walls are masonry or in which the ceiling and flooring are one unit (that is, the ceiling of a room is also the flooring of the upper room), leaving no room in which electric can hide. The electrical conduit inside this kitchen runs across the underside of wood beams.

Envi Interior Design Studio

In wood-framed constructions, holes are drilled through wood studs along with the electric cord is pulled. Nail plates are inserted on the outside of the stud prior to any wallboard is put up, to avoid anyone from hammering nails into the electric cable.

Rodriguez Studio Architecture PC

Conduit protects and conveys electrical wires to all outlets and fixtures requiring electricity. The electricity starts at the utility business, travels via a meter at every home and enters the house in the circuit breaker. Individual circuits distribute electricity in 100 or 200 amps across the house with a series of junction boxes and panels. The main breaker is a change that can turn off all electricity, and indivdual circuits command smaller regions of the house. Circuits automatically turn off if overloaded, to reduce the risk of fire.

Lucy Call

Industrial and commercial architecture often uses electric conduit because the the walls are strong CMU (concrete masonry blocks), making outside electricity inevitable.

CONTENT Architecture

Exposed ducting and electrical conduit are also typical in urban attic spaces, in which exposed brick walls don’t have any inner wall through which the mechanicals can be routed from perspective. A junction box is a metal box in which wires are tied together. The faceplate of the junction box is removable, providing access to the wires.

Monticello Custom Homes and Remodeling

Conduit has an industrial appeal. Conduit may or may not have been necessary to put in within this entryway, but it fits in with the edgy raw materials.

Robert Kaner Interior Design

Electrical conduit is routed around the large windows of the painted brick room because there is nowhere else to run the plumbing. But a little color coding makes the pipe work with the design of the room.

This light fixture is created out of electric conduit and junction boxes.

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4 Gorgeous Garden Appears for a Narrow Planting Strip

Tropical Style
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The savviest home gardener can fight to see the possibility in a narrow planting strip, and also when that pocket garden is on the outside of this fence, is it even worth bothering about? The challenges are many: difficult to water, reflected heat from the sidewalk, careless feet and often poor soil.

Yet these perimeter plantings can act as a picture frame for the interior garden and home beyond. When you examine how these architects and designers treated their pocket gardens, you could be tempted to rethink the positioning of your own border fence just to take advantage of the unique design opportunity.

Denise Dering Layout

1. A Romantic Border

A classic white picket fence festooned with fragrant roses — what can be more romantic? The beauty of the one is that passersby may enjoy the flowers, because they’re implanted on the outside of the fence.

Key design features:
Restraint in the colour and plantsRepetition of colors and plants down the whole borderGaining height by using the fence to support climbing rosesColor notes:
A restrained palette of pink and blue is accented with chartreuse.The deeper shades of purple provide depth, ensuring that this combination will still turn heads even in summer time. Plant selection:
Climbing ‘Mary Rose’ offers height and fragrance.Billowing mounds of golden creeping Jenny(Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’) and May Night salvia (Salvia nemorosa ‘May Night’) type the decrease tier.These perennials are tolerant of water, inadequate soil and warm sun.

John Lum Architecture, Inc.. AIA

2. A Contemporary Home

The strong geometric lines of contemporary architecture call to get a foliage-focused planting, and this narrow roadside border delivers.

Key design features:
Restraint in colour and plant varietyLinear planting that echoes the flat lines of the home’s siding and fenceEmphasis on foliage over flowersColor note:
Muted earth tonesPlant choice:
Grasses and succulents are suitable for contemporary landscape design, as they rely upon their strong form instead of colorful blooms.These plants require minimal water and maintenance.The grasses add a bright note to the dark stained fence panels.

Le jardinet

3. An Entry That Establishes a Theme

A garden entry should create a feeling of anticipation, setting the scene for what is beyond. Plantings on the road side of the lattice fence do that.

Key design features:
An intriguing blend of textures and heights makes this tiny planting pocket look much larger than it actually is.Several of those plants may also be glimpsed within the primary garden. Color note:
Subdued tones of tan and pink permit the eye to move through the garden entrance. Plant choice:
This can be a particularly hot, dry border, so these plants are chosen due to their tenacity. Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima), feather reed grass(Calamgrostis x acutiflora ‘Karl Foerster’)and sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ (Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’) provide long-term interest.More on this Fantastic garden plant combination

Le jardinet

4. Planting Strips That Link Multiple Homes

Planned communities such as this one in Kirkland, Washington, have their own challenges, not the least of which is abiding by homeowners association regulations.

These planting strips permit identity while maintaining a cohesive design.

Key design features:
A narrow planting strip adjacent to the sidewalk is located beyond each homeowner’s split-rail fence.Several plants have been replicated through all the gardens, while there’s still space for some unique choices. Shade note:
Shades of blue, green and lavender are replicated throughout. Plant choice:
All the plants are lower compared to the elevation of this split-rail fence; allowing the fence to be glimpsed the whole sidewalk gives the illusion of a constant border.Each plant typically has a mounding habit, creating a feeling of uniformity.Lavender(Lavandula spp)and sedum ‘Autumn Joy’ (Sedum ‘Herbstfreude’) are implanted throughout these pocket gardens as well as in the adjacent communal garden areas. Bronze-colored coral bells (Heuchera hyb.) And daylilies (Hemerocallis spp) are also used. More:
Guides to Flowers | Give Curb Appeal a Self-Serving Twist

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