Information Central

Preparing Your Garden for Spring

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Wed, 01 May 2013 11:52:52 +0000

Preparing Your Garden This Spring Now that spring is here, it’s the perfect time to start thinking about your garden at home and getting it ready for upcoming blooming season. Before you can start to reap the benefits of a beautiful backyard or front lawn, it’s important to make sure that you’ve got everything settled [...]

Growing Coriander

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 19:00:03 +0000

The Coriander plant produces two different kinds of herbs with different uses. The greens, or cilantro, are used in Middle Eastern, Asian, and Latin American cuisine. The coriander seed is used as a spice in whole or ground form. It has been used since ancient times for its medicinal qualities and as an important ingredient [...]

Preparing Your Garden For Spring

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:35:16 +0000

How to Prepare Your Garden for Spring This is a guest post by Lucy Markham. I hope you enjoy these reminders of what to do to get your garden ready for spring. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just getting into the game, then now is a perfect time to start preparing your own little [...]

Attracting Toads to Your Garden

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:10:53 +0000

A single adult toad can eat as many as 10,000 insect pests in a single summer. Toads are environmentally friendly, don’t damage plants or other items in your garden, and are one hundred percent organic pest control. How can you get a toad to call your garden home? Toads need the same things any other [...]

Planting Fruit Trees in Winter

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 14:35:25 +0000

There’s nothing quite like enjoying fruits from your own apple trees, Victoria plum trees or other delightful fruit-producing trees. You might be surprised to know that winter is actually the best time to plant a fruit tree, even though the grey skies make it seem lifeless. Why Plant Fruit Trees in Winter By planting your [...]

Which Strawberries Should You Grow?

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 17:20:54 +0000

A hot summer’s day is never complete without a delicious bowl of strawberries and cream. And the best strawberries are always the ones you’ve grown yourself; they’re fresher, riper and much, much tastier. You might think that growing strawberry plants is hard and time consuming – surely it’s quicker to pop down to the local [...]

Dogs and Routines

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 16:31:24 +0000

This post about my dog Amber is part of a bigger narrative about amazing dogs going the extra mile. Thank you www.wooddogcrate.com for making this possible. Dogs are funny. They very much like routine and resent it when a person does something at the wrong time, or doesn’t do something at the correct time. My dogs, [...]

Anthracnose in Tomatoes

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 19:37:55 +0000

Anthracnose is a fungal disease that will ruin your tomatoes in warm, moist weather. It leaves in the soil and gets on the plant when you water it and splash soil on the plant. The disease doesn’t do much to leaves or green tomatoes, but causes a rotten circle in ripe ones that can take [...]

Take Care of Your Gardening Tools

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 17:55:51 +0000

As garden season winds down, it is a good idea to take some time to maintain your garden tools before you put them away for the winter. Remove all dirt and debris from them with a garden hose and a stiff brush. Sharpen all the tools that cut and cultivate in your garden. A metal [...]

Intelligent Disobedience in Service Dogs

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sat, 29 Sep 2012 21:37:02 +0000

This post about my dog Amber is part of a bigger narrative about amazing dogs going the extra mile. Thank you www.dogtrainingcollars.com for making this possible. Intelligent disobedience is one of the hardest things for a service dog to learn. It is a very complicated behavior that asks your dog to actually disobey a command [...]

Growing Fall Asters

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:20:07 +0000

Fall asters are a delightful addition to your garden. Their startling lavender petals with gold centers provide welcome color at a time when many flowers are done blooming. They are good to plant around your fall garden to attract beneficial insects. Fall asters is native from Texas and New Mexico all the way north to [...]

Simple Garden Design Tips For Busy Homes

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:31:04 +0000

Approaches to garden design vary, from those containing strictly regimented rows of flowers, plants or vegetables, to those where it appears that a handful of seeds have been scattered on the ground and left to get on with it. By taking an approach somewhere between the two extremes, gardeners can design a space that is [...]

Attracting Toads to Your Garden

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:12:51 +0000

For those of you who wish to use fewer and less toxic pesticides in the garden, you should attract toads to your garden. A single adult toad can eat 10,000 insect pests in a single summer. Toads eat most insects, including slugs, gypsy moths, and earwigs. In the United States, we have 21 different species [...]

Fishing with Dogs

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:02:31 +0000

This post about my dogs Sandy and Amber is part of a bigger narrative about amazing dogs going the extra mile. Thank you www.dogbarkcollar.com for making this possible. Sandy is my Australian Cattle Dog. She wandered up to my house when she was about eight months old. I could not find her owner and decided to [...]

Time to Clean Your Fruit Orchards

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Wed, 19 Sep 2012 17:28:55 +0000

With the end of fruit season, it is time to clean your fruit orchards. Remove any debris or fallen fruit from your orchard. Pick and discard fruit left on the trees. These steps remove places that pests and diseases overwinter and reduce your problems for next year. Stop all pruning until the normal winter pruning [...]

How a Tree Dies

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:21:50 +0000

Home owners are frequently stunned when a tree that appeared to make it through the drought last year “suddenly” dies. Actually, trees take a long time to die. Many trees that appear to be dying now have been dying all year from the drought. It wasn’t just the drought that killed them, but the high [...]

Fall Gardening in Full Swing

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:32:30 +0000

September is a busy month for gardeners in North Texas. Cole crops such as broccoli, cabbage, and kale should be put out in the first part of the month. Watering them in with a dilute solution of fertilizer will give them a boost as they start out. Radishes, beets, Swiss chard and turnips can be [...]

Training Service Dogs Hard Work

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 12:54:39 +0000

This post about my dog Amber is part of a bigger narrative about amazing dogs going the extra mile. Thank you www.dogfencediy.com for making this possible. Every once in a while I write about my dogs and this is one of those times. Because I had a service dog that I trained, people often ask [...]

Pineberry Fields Forever

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:59:27 +0000

When pineberries first hit the market in 2010, many people thought they were a hoax. And indeed the milk-white strawberries with red pips look more than just exotic, they look alien. However, they are real, and what’s more they taste absolutely delicious. The flavour is somewhere between that of a strawberry and that of a [...]

How drought kills trees

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 13:12:44 +0000

Many people are surprised that their trees are dying when we have had a lot of rain in Texas. However, most of those trees are dying from the effects of last year’s drought. It usually takes a tree a year or two to die so people are still losing trees from last year. Drought kills [...]

Growing Cilantro

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 13:19:35 +0000

Cilantro is a Greek herb that is in the same family as parsley. It is used in a variety of dishes in cuisines as varied as Mexican and Thai. Coriander, the seed of the cilantro plant, is also used to flavor a wide variety of dishes. Cilantro prefers light, well-drained sandy loam soil, but [...]

Growing Dill

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 11:37:35 +0000

Dill was introduced into this country from Asia and is used as a culinary herb. Both the fernlike leaves and the flowers are edible. After the first year, dill readily self-seeds and will come back year after year. Dill is seeded directly into the garden after all danger of frost is passed. Seeds should be [...]

Hand Pollinating Squash and Cucumbers

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 11:41:42 +0000

Are you having problems with your cucumbers and squash growing to two or three inches long and then rotting? You may be having pollination problems. Normally, squash and cucumbers have male and female flowers. Bees bring pollen from the male flowers to pollinate the female flowers. With the problems bees have been having with colony [...]

Growing Your Own Lemon Tree

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 18:30:08 +0000

Now that salad days are finally here again, there’s nothing lovelier on home-grown summer leaves than a drizzle of virgin olive oil and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. Shop bought fruits are fairly cheap and plentiful, but imagine the pleasure of plucking a fragrant fruit from your very own lemon tree. And there’s no [...]

Cedar Apple Rust

Stephanie Suesan Smith — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:07:29 +0000

Cedar Apple Rust is a fungal infection that occurs frequently in damp weather. Despite the name, Cedar Apple Rust can infect other plants besides cedar and apple trees. Cedar Apple Rust is a post from: Information Central: Vegetable Gardening Questions Answered. Copyright 2010-2012 Stephanie Suesan Smith, Ph.