In the north, we have a few options for natural sweeteners. We have maple products that we can make in spring; we have sugar beets; and we have honey. Harvesting honey is about more than just the sweet, sticky gold stuff, though. It’s about properly taking care of some of the most important organism...

Every year, Worship of Tools Day is celebrated on March 11. Often not very large, often held directly in your hands, tools are the key to a good life. Where would we be if we couldn’t create things by hammering nails into wood? How would we dig holes without shovels? Think of all the things you own ...

In “Super Troopers,” Thorny and Rabbit chug it straight from the bottle. In the movie “Elf,” Buddy pours it all over his spaghetti. Americans love maple syrup in all its sticky sweetness as well as other maple products from cotton candy to maple crème to those yummy little maple candies. Do you have...

Gardeners in cold climates have learned to extend the growing season by building greenhouses. As early as 30 CE, reports of greenhouses appeared in the writings of the famous Pliny the Elder, Roman savant and scientific authority of his time. Pliny described specularia as garden beds fitted with whe...

It’s midwinter and you reach into your paper bag of carefully stored garlic. You pull out a bulb and see a sprout emerging from the top. There is nothing wrong. It is the nature of garlic cloves to sprout at this time of year. The problem is that over the next weeks the cloves will use up all their ...

Popular species of perennial flowering plants vary widely in their attractiveness to pollinators, but homeowners and landscape managers who select certain perennial cultivars can support a diverse community of pollinators in their own backyards, according to a new study from a team of Penn State res...

Any living organism that is normally found in one specific region and is introduced to another region with incredibly negative effects on the new environment is bad news. Invasive species take that negativity a step further by outcompeting native species, taking away the nutrients, water and even su...

Occasionally my seven-year-old granddaughter comes in to work with me. One day she asked if she could set up her own desk so she could do some work too. We used an empty desk and got her set up with some office supplies, printed out a sign that said “Kenza’s Desk” and put up a few decorations. She i...

Without getting too deep, we may have missed out on a lot of things over the past two years, but one thing we definitely can’t get enough of is quality time spent with our best walking buddies – our dogs. February 22 is Walking the Dog Day, and even if the weather isn’t ideal where you are, grab tha...