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Email & DirectionsMelanie’s Blog Posts
- KILLING DANDELIONS AND WEEDS IN YOUR LAWN
- THE BENEFITS OF MULCH IN YOUR GARDENS
- TURNING YOUR LAWN INTO A “GREEN CARPET” THIS SPRING
- CARING FOR YOUR “GREEN CARPET” LAWN
- STARTING YOUR NEW “GREEN CARPET” LAWN
- CORN GLUTEN MEAL AS WEED CONTROL?
- GRUB DAMAGE IN YOUR LAWN THIS SPRING?
- GROWING ALFALFA — GRASS MIXTURES
- LAMB SURVIVAL — The first 24 hours
- WINTER FOOTBATHS
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Author Archives: Melanie
KILLING DANDELIONS AND WEEDS IN YOUR LAWN
Dandelions are starting to show their bright, yellow faces this spring and like it or not, they’re going to make their annual appearance in our lawns. Whether you can tolerate their short-lived bloom or endure watching their wispy seed pods … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care, Lawn Care
Tagged dandelion, dandelions, herbicide, iron-based herbicide, lawn weeds, Scotts, weed killer, weed-b-gon, weeds
2 Comments
TURNING YOUR LAWN INTO A “GREEN CARPET” THIS SPRING
A thick, full lawn that is richly green provides a safe and cushioned surface for family activities — it also spiffs up the curb appeal. Healthy, green turf also prevents soil erosion on slopes, filters contaminants from rainwater, absorbs many … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care
Tagged benefits of a healthy lawn, feeding your lawn, fertilize, fertilizer, grass, lawn, lawn care, nitrogen
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STARTING YOUR NEW “GREEN CARPET” LAWN
Spring is here and you are tired of looking out your window at the dirt and mud surrounding your home. You can’t wait to have that beautiful green carpet beckoning you outdoors this summer. Well, you can have that lawn … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care
Tagged bluegrass, cyclone seeder, germinating your lawn, grass seed, lawn, lawn care, perennial ryegrass, planting grass seed, planting lawn seed, ryegrass, seeding your lawn, sowing lawn seed
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CORN GLUTEN MEAL AS WEED CONTROL?
Corn gluten meal is a great fertilizer — but its value as a weed control product is marginal. Due to the Ontario Pesticide Ban, there has been an increased demand for organic weed control products and the use of … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care, Lawn Care
Tagged controlling crabgrass, corn gluten, corn gluten meal, lawn care, lawn fertilizer, pre-emergent weed seeds, weed control
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GRUB DAMAGE IN YOUR LAWN THIS SPRING?
Do you have animals digging up your lawn, crows congregating and pecking in the grass or have you found shallow tunnels exposed after the snow melted? These are all signs that your lawn is … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn Care
Tagged grub damage, grubs, japanese beetle, june bugs, lawn, nematodes, raccoons, skunks, white grubs
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GROWING ALFALFA — GRASS MIXTURES
Posted in Uncategorized
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LAMB SURVIVAL — The first 24 hours
From Premier 1 Supplies — January Newsletter Author: Gordon Shelangoski, Premier Consultant and Product Development Today’s shepherds are different from those of 50 years ago. Most shepherds nowadays have very little time to spend with the lambs — an hour … Continue reading
Posted in SHEEP & GOATS
Tagged colostrum, ewe preparation, feeding lambs, lamb survival, lambing, lambs, newborn lambs, sheep, starting healthy lambs;, surviving the first 24 hours, tubing lambs
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STARTING SEEDS INDOORS
Select your seeds and plan to start them in a warm area approximately six to eight weeks before the last frost date is expected in your area. Choose containers with adequate drainage. Loosely fill containers with Potting Mix and gently … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care
Tagged fertilizing, germination, grow lights, seed trays, seedlings, starting seeds, transplanting, watering
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WHY AREN’T THERE ANY BIRDS COMING TO MY FEEDER?
Spread some loose seed around the bottom of the feeders. This could be more visible to passing birds and they will discover the feeders above. Always use new crop seed. Old crop is usually ignored by birds once the new … Continue reading
Posted in BIRDS & WILDLIFE, GENERAL INTEREST
Tagged attracting birds, backyard birds, bird feeder, bird seed, nyjer, nyjer seed, wild bird feeding, wild bird seed, wild birds, wildlife
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ARE YOUR CHICKENS READY FOR WINTER?
The nights are becoming chilly at this time of the year. Many places are actually starting to experience a freeze at night so now is a good time to get down to the chicken coop and make winter preparations for … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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WINTER WATER FOR HORSES
Author: Susan Garey, Extension Agent with University of Delaware Cooperative Extension Horse owners and caretakers pay careful attention to the quantity and quality of water that horses consume during the hot summer months. However, water consumption during the winter months … Continue reading
Posted in EQUINE
Tagged adequate hydration in horses, equine water requirements, heated bucket, stock tank de-icer, stock tank heaters, the benefits of warm water for horses, winter management tips for horses, winter water for horses; water consumption for horses
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MELTING ICE IN WINTER
Dealing with icy patios, driveways and sidewalks are a fact of life in northern climates where snow and winter conditions are a regular occurrence. There are many different ways to deal with ice, whether using one of many chemical compounds to … Continue reading
Posted in GENERAL INTEREST, HOME
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FEEDING GRASSES TO DAIRY COWS — PART 2
Posted in Uncategorized
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WORKING WITH LOW FORAGE INVENTORIES
Posted in DAIRY
Tagged cottonseed, cottonseed hulls, factors affecting forage quality, feeding ingredients to replace forages, replacing forages, working with low forage inventories
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SUMMER GARDENING TIPS
by The Savvy Experts By mid-summer, perennial gardens can start to look overgrown, annual flowers begin to fade, and bugs may be munching on your vegetables. Savvy Gardening is here to help! We thought we’d share some of our top summer gardening tips for … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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CONTAINER GARDEN MAINTENANCE TIPS
by The Savvy Experts All of us at Savvy Gardening enjoy putting together multiple container gardens each year. Some are full of veggies or berries, some show off interesting flower and foliage combos, and others feature both edibles and ornamentals—or, as we like to call them, garden … Continue reading
Posted in Flowers, Lawn & Garden Care, Uncategorized
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MANAGING MINERALS ON PASTURE
Posted in BEEF, Uncategorized
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HOW TO IDENTIFY & CONTROL TOMATO PLANT DISEASE
by Jessica Walliser Tomato growers are a passionate bunch. Some of us spend long hours combing over seed catalogs and nursery benches full of plants to select the perfect tomato varieties for our garden. We plant, tend, prune, fertilize, stake, and otherwise … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care, Vegetable Gardens
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ZUCCHINI GROWING PROBLEMS
by Jessica Walliser Zucchini and other soft-skinned summer squashes are usually pretty easy to grow. But, gardeners do sometimes face struggles with these productive crops. Perhaps your vines stopped producing in mid summer? Or the fruits were small or deformed? Or … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care, Uncategorized, Vegetable Gardens
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FOUR MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT ALFALFA FOR HORSES — by Heather Smith Thomas
Does alfalfa cause kidney or respiratory problems or make horses hyper? Specialists shed light on these myths and more. Despite all the science-backed suggestions about feeding alfalfa, it remains a misunderstood forage. The following are a few misconceptions worth clarifying. … Continue reading
Posted in EQUINE, Uncategorized
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THE SECRET HEALTH BENEFITS OF FLOWERS
By: Bianca Vierra on 07.25.2018 NEWS Flowers are often reserved for special occasions and the part of our spending budget that we label frivolous. But what if you were told that flowers can actually bring health benefits? Would you purchase them … Continue reading
Posted in Flowers, Lawn & Garden Care, Uncategorized
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WHEN TO HARVEST POTATOES
by Niki Jabbour Potatoes are one of the easiest crops to grow producing a bounty of tasty tubers when planted in garden beds and containers. Plus, there’s so many awesome potato varieties to grow – from fingerlings to russets – in a … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
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ICE-FREE WATER FOR FARM ANIMALS AND PETS
Whether you have cattle, horses, chickens, sheep or any other farm animals, our De-Icers, Heated Plastic or Rubber Buckets and Heated Fountains will make the job of keeping the water from freezing during the winter months much easier. From … Continue reading
Posted in BEEF, DAIRY, GENERAL INTEREST, PETS
Tagged de-icer, deicers, heated bucket, heated pail, heated pet bowl, heated pet mat, heated poultry fountain, ice-free water, pond deicer, Ritchie fountain, waterers
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PLANTING A TOMATO SEEDLING
Stealing this video link and directions for planting tomato seedlings from Mark Cullen’s Gardening Week spot on Canada AM. Here, he shares his recipe for growing great tomatoes. My recipe for the best tomatoes on the block: — Buy … Continue reading
Posted in Lawn & Garden Care, Vegetable Gardens
Tagged growing tomatoes, Mark Cullen, planting tomatoes, tomato, tomato seedlings, tomatoes
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WHY NO IMPATIENS?
I get asked this question almost daily at our garden centre — “Where are the Impatiens?”. For the answer, Mark Cullen says it best and offers his suggestions for alternatives to impatiens in your gardens and planters. This is from … Continue reading
Posted in Flowers, GENERAL INTEREST, Lawn & Garden Care
Tagged begonias, caladium, downy mildew, downy mildew in impatiens, impatiens, impatiens alternatives, impatiens walleriana, lobelia, Mark Cullen, plasmorpara obducens, shade-tolerant plants, torenia
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Mark Cullen’s May Garden To-Do List
Mark Cullen is an expert gardener, author, broadcaster and garden editor of Reno and Decor magazine. Get his free monthly newsletter at markcullen.com, and watch him on CTV Canada AM every Wednesday at 8:45 a.m. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCullen4 … Continue reading
Posted in Flowers, Lawn & Garden Care, Lawn Care, Uncategorized, Vegetable Gardens
Tagged black earth, cattle manure, composted manure, dig & divide perennials, garden to-do list; starting veggie seeds; start vegetable seeds indoors, Golfgreen Iron Plus, lawn care for spring, lawn preparations for spring, Mark Cullen's May Garden To-Do List, mowing height for lawn, organic compost, organic composted manure, organic manure, overseeding lawn, planting evergreens and roses, planting trees & shrubs in spring, preparing your soil for vegetable garden, sheep manure, soil amendments, soil prep for gardens, start from seed indoors, topdressing your lawn with seed, vegetables to plant in early May
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MARK CULLEN’S GUIDE TO CHOOSING VEGETABLE SEEDS
By: Mark Cullen Gardening, Published on Thurs., March 13, 2014 — Toronto Star It may seem early for me to say this, but now is the time for gardeners to think about what they are going to grow this season. But there are … Continue reading
Posted in Vegetable Gardens
Tagged beans, carrots, cayenne peppers, garden seeds, growing tomatoes, hot peppers, leeks, lettuce greens, lettuces, mesclun mix, peppers, radishes, seeds, starting seeds, tomato, vegetable seeds, vegetables, what to start indoors for seeds
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PANSIES — My Favourite Way to Bring in the Spring!
Pansies are one of the most popular and recognizable cool weather annuals. Breeding has produced pansies that are better able to stand up to the cold, but there hasn’t been much luck producing more heat tolerant varieties. Many pansies are … Continue reading
Posted in BEEF, Flowers
Tagged baskets, cheery faces, containers, cool-tolerant plants, flower, hardy spring annual, Pansies, pansy, planters, planting spring flowers, pots
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PLANTING A DEER & WILDLIFE PASTURE
If you love to see the wildlife in your backyard acreage and wonder how to attract deer, turkeys and other wildlife to visit, you may consider planting a wildlife mixture to establish feeding areas. ‘Nature’s Choice’ Wildlife Mixture by Mapleseed … Continue reading
Posted in BIRDS & WILDLIFE
Tagged deer pasture, habitat cover, natural habitat, wild turkeys, wildlife, wildlife feeding areas, wildlife mixture, wildlife seed mix
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Drought Stress in Corn Silage & Green Chop Concerns
Posted in DAIRY
Tagged drought stress, drought stress in corn silage, feeding green chop, green chop, harvesting drought-stressed corn silage, high nitrates in corn, mitigating the effects of drought-stressed corn, nitrates, problems with drought-stressed corn crop
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DRY SOIL TIPS FOR ELECTRIC FENCING
Many folks find that their electric fences “stop working” when the soil becomes so dry that the grass turns brown. Why does this occur? Electric fences work by sending out an energy pulse that must return to the energizer for … Continue reading
Posted in BEEF, DAIRY, ELECTRIC FENCING
Tagged dry grass, dry soil tips, electric fence, electric fencing, fixing electric fence, ground stake
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FINDING EXTRA FEED FOR BEEF CATTLE DURING DROUGHT CONDITIONS
The following is an excerpt that was included in the August Newsletter, Beef News in Durham, distributed by the Durham Cattlemen’s Association. Finding Extra Feed Jack Kyle (OMAFRA), Grazier Specialist 705-324-5855 Finding extra forage is going to be a challenge … Continue reading
Posted in BEEF, Crops and Inputs
Tagged baleage, cereals, corn silage, drought, feed, feed testing, forage, oats, ration balancing, rye, sorghum, sorghum-sudan grass, straw, strip grazing, triticale
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WATER REQUIREMENTS FOR BEEF CATTLE
Posted in BEEF
Tagged beef drinking water, cattle water requirements, snow as a water source, water bowl/trough management, water for beef, water functions in beef cattle, water requirements for beef cattle
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DRY TMR PROGRAM FOR TRANSITION DAIRY HEIFER CALVES
Posted in DAIRY
Tagged 22% Rumimax for Transition Heifer Calves, chopped straw, dairy ration, feeding chopped straw, SOP for mixing & feeding Dry Transition Calf TMR, TMR program, TMR ration, transition calf ration, transition heifer ration
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“THE ROUNDUP” NEWSLETTER — “When are Pastures Ready to Graze?”; “Beef Still in Demand”; “Healthy Feet”
Posted in BEEF
Tagged beef minerals, beef premixes, beef still in demand, cattle hooves, custom beef mineral, foot baths, healthy feet, minerals, premixes, pro-beef, shur-gain roundup newsletter, when are pastures ready to graze
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AVIAN INFLUENZA ADVISORY for Small Flock Owners and Bird Fanciers
Industry Advisory Animal Health and Welfare Branch Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs As of April 21, 2015, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed the presence of a highly pathogenic H5N2 avian influenza virus on two commercial … Continue reading
Posted in BIRDS & WILDLIFE, GENERAL INTEREST, POULTRY
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GLYPHOSATE: A CARCINOGEN?
This blog article is copied from ‘A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A FARMER’ blog post that I thought I’d share due to the recent hype around RoundUp being labelled as a human carcinogen. Every once in a while, … Continue reading
Posted in Crops and Inputs, GENERAL INTEREST, Lawn & Garden Care
Tagged cancer and roundup, cancer-causing Roundup, carcinogenic to humans, glyphosate, glyphosate debate, herbicide, herbicides and cancer, Is glyphosate safe, Round Up, roundup, Roundup as Carcinogen
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“THE ROUNDUP” SPRING NEWSLETTER — PRO BEEF PROGRAM
Posted in Uncategorized
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What You Need To Know About Genetically Modified Organisms
August 26, 2014 | by Justine Alford Genetically modified crops are a topic of intense debate that have sparked a lot of controversy over the years, fuelled largely through a lack of understanding and vast amounts of misinformation. Do we need GM crops? … Continue reading
Posted in Crops and Inputs, GENERAL INTEREST
Tagged controversy surrounding gmo's, genetically-modified organism, gm crops, GMO's, good science vs. bad science, myths
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THINGS TO DO IN YOUR GARDEN IN SEPTEMBER
***This list is courtesy of Mark Cullen 🙂 Peonies. September is ‘peony splitting’ month. If you have one that is too big for the space that it is in or if you just want to move it, now is the time. … Continue reading
Posted in Flowers, GENERAL INTEREST, Lawn & Garden Care, Lawn Care, Vegetable Gardens
Tagged apply nematodes, cut back flowering shrubs, deadhead roses, fall bulbs, fall harvest, fertilize, fertilizer, lawn seeding, pruning, pruning raspberries, split peonies
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DO YOU WANT TO GET FREE DOG FOOD?
Ask us today about how to earn FREE DOG FOOD with our Pet Food Loyalty Card Program. Ask for your own frequent buyer loyalty card and all you have to do is keep track of your dog or cat food … Continue reading
Posted in GENERAL INTEREST, PETS, Uncategorized
Tagged dog food, earn free dog food, free dog food, frequent buyer card, Lifetime, loyalty card, made in canada, Wholesome Blend
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PESKY FLIES THIS SPRING???
As spring arrives, so do the flies as they awake from their winter slumber and congregate in your windows and doors, buzzing annoyingly and driving you crazy. The Cluster Busterâ„¢ is a revolutionary new fly trap from Powder Trap Inc.â„¢ that has received … Continue reading
Posted in HOME
Tagged cluster buster, cluster flies, fly control product, fly problem, fly trap, killing flies, powder trap
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HORSE LOVER’S SELF-GUIDED TOUR — Uxbridge and Scugog
Visit local horse farms in both communities to learn first-hand each farm’s unique contribution to the equine experience — FREE EVENT! Check out www.scugog.ca and www.town.uxbridge.on.ca for details on their event’s calendar for the link to the complete tour brochure. UXBRIDGE TOUR — Saturday, … Continue reading
Posted in EQUINE, GENERAL INTEREST
Tagged Amistad, Brookdale Farm, Cedar Valley Stables, Colebrook Farms, Dream Feather Equestrian, Dreamcrest, equine massage therapy, farrier., Hop Hill Stables, horse tour, Hoskin Stables, J.C. Love Ranch B&B, Jessica Phoenix, Kevin Alcock, Michele Mueller, Morgan Horse Heritage Center, self-guided horse tour, Vanessa Beach, WindReach
2 Comments