big blue stem garden supply

With the delights of gardening come some chores. Here’s a month-by-month breakdown to make the work easier.

January

Prune roses, fruit trees, berries and grapes. Apply tribasic copper sulfate or lime sulfur for peach leaf curl.

February

Start seeds inside for spring and summer planting. Fertilize lawns later this month and apply pre-emergent control for crab grass in the lawn. more »

The cashew is the seed of a tropical evergreen plant related to the mango, pistachio, and poison ivy. Originating in Brazil, the cashew plant made its way to India in the sixteenth century via Portuguese sailors.

Unlike most fruits where the seed is found inside the flesh, the cashew seed hangs from the bottom of the cashew apple. Cashew apples begin to ferment as soon as they are picked and will barely last 24 hours. Cashew apples are highly prized in their growing locale, where they are sometimes found canned, in jams, or used to make liqueurs.

Health Benefits
Cashew nuts, a richly sweet product of the cashew tree, have gained popularity in North America and Europe not only for their succulent flavor but for health benefits, too. Whether roasted, salted, sugared or covered in chocolate, the cashew nut, often used as a flavorful complement to appetizers, main dishes and deserts, packs a mix of nutrients and minerals not found in many common foods.
Cashew nuts has a high content of monounsaturated fats, copper and magnesium, has no cholesterol, helps maintain healthy gums and teeth, contains healthy monounsaturated fat that promotes good cardiovascular health, rich in antioxidants.

Cashew Cooking Tips
Make cashew butter by processing cashews in the food processor until the mixture reaches the consistency of peanut butter. Use as you would peanut butter on bread, crackers, or as a soup thickener.

Cashews shine in curries, vegetables, salad, pasta, rice, stir-fries, stew, and desserts.

Unless intended as a thickener, do not add cashews to hot dishes until near the end of the cooking process as they will quickly become soft and begin to disintegrate. Cashews will become soft in baked goods and do not retain their crunch like other nuts.

Storage
Cashews are highly perishable and can turn rancid quickly due to their high oil content. Choose vacuum-packed jars or cans over cellophane packaging. Store cashews in a cool, dry place in an airtight container to avoid absorption of other food odors. At room temperature, they will not last long, but if you refrigerate them, they can last up to 6 months. Cashews may also be frozen up to 1 year.

♦Mistletoe is an evergreen parasite. That means it doesn’t drop its leaves in winter and doesn’t grow in soil. It germinates and lives on another plant and dies when the host dies.

♦Mistletoe puts a special root system called “haustoria” into its host, a tree, and then extracts nutrients from that tree.

♦Though you can sometimes purchase seed of the American Mistletoe Phoradendron leucarpum, it is almost never successfully cultivated. Birds are most often responsible for “planting” mistletoe on trees by consuming the berries elsewhere and then rubbing their beaks on the tree or leaving droppings that contain the seeds. more »

The Malone Bay community features 18 lots at W. Kerr Scott Dam & Reservoir. Fourteen (14) are Lakefront and meet private dock requirements. All lots have access to public water, saving owners from $5,000 to $10,000 on drilling a well. These lots have public water and will save you the cost of drilling a well. The entire development also features underground utilities.

This is a gated community with lots ranging from 2.3+- acres to 6.8+- acres on the Hwy 421 side of the lake just off South Minton Road, Wilkesboro, NC 28697

W. Kerr Scott Lake is 1500 acres with 50 miles of shoreline and is controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It is clean water with good fishing and is excellent for boating, kayaking, skiing, and swimming. The property is surrounded by National Parks. Wilkesboro is a beautiful community and town with friendly people. It is located just 40 miles east of Boone and Blowing Rock, NC and one and a half hours northwest of Charlotte.

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Landscape and gardening books are handy sources of inspiration that make perfect holiday gifts for the gardener on your list. Here is a selection of the best works from this year’s bumper crop of books from Post garden editor Adrian Higgins and environmental landscape expert Joel M. Lerner:

“What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)” by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth (Timber Press, $24.95). This is one of the best books for guiding the gardener, especially the novice, through the maze of the many maladies that can visit garden plants. The key to fixing a problem is identifying it, which is often much easier said than done. Yellowing leaves might mean an iron deficiency, a lack of nitrogen or overzealous watering. The authors use illustrated flow charts to allow reasonably observant gardeners to figure out the cause. The second part offers organic remedies for pests, diseases and bad gardening practices. The third section is a photo gallery of common ailments. This book is a valuable tool and long overdue. more »

Waterfront on New River

Heritage Estates Lot 46. 1.3 acres. 100 feet on the river. Anchored gazebo stays. Septic permit. Shared well. Graded and ready to build on. Paved road.

MLS Number: 54345
List Price: $110,000

Very nice lot on New River. Good neighborhood, paved road to lot. Over 100′ on river, has a new gazebo anchored on lot that stays. Septic permit has been pulled as per seller. Grading has been done and shared well on lot. Ready to build on.

Ashe County
Lot Size, Apx Acreage: 1.37
Type: Waterfront
Suitable Use: Residential
Topography: Level, Stream/Creek
Utilities: Total Electric
Water/Sewer: Community Water, Septic Tank
Road Frontage: Private Road, Paved Road
Miscellaneous: 1-5 Acres

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What have you been doing in your garden lately? There are lots of leaves to rake and bushes and shrubs to prune and weeds to pull. I hate to weed the garden but it’s a necessity. Some nice new gardening tools for the mature and aged which are easy on the hands would be a very welcome gift for me and I’m sure for some of you.

I must tell you I have received Jackson and Perkins’ new Christmas catalog and there are so many and varied colors and types of amaryllis that one can only drool. There are also beautiful Christmas cactus plants which, of course, can all be carried over to the next several years. Some of them would be nice gifts to give to yourself. After all, don’t you deserve that for all your hard garden work throughout the year?

more »

Start with a fresh tree. If the needles snap, they are too dry. Fresh needles should bend, not break. Some loss of needles inside the tree is common. Check the height of the ceiling in the room where you will display your tree. Select a tree that is at least 1foot shorter than the ceiling height.

Avoid a tree that has a wilted look. Make sure the trunk of the tree is straight. The trunk should be 6 to 8 inches long to allow placement in the tree stand.

Check the tree for insects. When you get your tree home, make a fresh cut, take off 1 inch from the trunk and place the tree in fresh water immediately. Your stand should always contain plenty of water. This will reduce loss of needles.

more »

Small trees are powerful design tools that anyone can use. Whether it’s a white star magnolia in spring, a magenta crepe myrtle in summer or a fiery Japanese maple in the fall, small trees are always exquisite in the landscape. They are not planted for shade like the great oaks or sycamores. Small trees act like bright, beautiful arrows that point out and accentuate landmarks in your yard.

We designers call them accent trees to differentiate them from shade or screening trees. An accent tree is usually deciduous because these tend to offer the best flowers and fall leaf color. When bare in the winter they can also become glittering nighttime beauties when strung with Christmas lights. more »

In modern world depression is something as common as having a headache or a hangover after a rough night out, but only few people realize how serious this problem really is. Try to find a person who has never shown signs of depression and you will realize that it’s almost impossible. Almost, but not definitely. Recent studies have shown that there is a group of people in the modern world who don’t even know what depression is all about. And surprisingly, these people are generally very poor and far from what most people would consider as good wellbeing.

While this statement will seem ridiculous to most of us, this is true and can be proven even using simple logics. You won’t see a poor man or woman worrying about their lost success, or craving for a new car they want to get so bad. The only thing they worry about is getting food and having a place to spend a cold night. These people are free from aspirations and stresses most middle and upper class individuals have to deal with. If put simple, poor people are in a dream-like state of full mental harmony with their physiological needs. They aren’t troubled by their spiritual or emotional desires, they aren’t troubled by things others might think or say about them. Of course, living below the line of poverty has its stresses and burdens but they are always stripped down to simple bodily needs. No psychological worries, no stress, no depression.

In contrast, you will find the majority of extremely rich and upper class individual taking Xanax, Prozac or Valium to calm down and get them through. Having much money or being in the spotlight has its price tag, which usually comes in the form of certain limits, responsibilities and things to worry about. People from middle and upper classes pay too much attention to they way others see them and this alone is a rich source of mental stress. And what happens when something goes slightly wrong? A homeless individual won’t bother if his or her new Bentley gets stolen, because they don’t have it. A rich mogul will hire dozens of professionals to protect his private house and spend hours (and tons of valium)on worrying about the latest news from stock exchange. And isn’t it ironic that in such a situation the poor are actually richer than the rich, if you know from what point of view to look?

For pumpkin lovers, there may be nothing better than a simple slice of a great pie. That rich, velvety custard filling baked atop a flaky, golden crust, a great pumpkin pie is a thing of sheer beauty, a perfect way to show off the very best the squash has to offer.

Then, of course, there are the leaden hockey pucks that pass for pies at way too many a holiday gathering. Thick, dense filling — either cloyingly sweet and spiced to the hilt, or dismally bland — baked atop a crust that’s about as easy to gnaw as a Frisbee and just as flavorless. more »

Many of the new gardeners didn’t know how to grow vegetables, and weren’t sure what to do with them once they did.

They learned, though, as part of a project by a local college to help a community hard-hit by the recession grow some of its own food.

Wilmington College provided the 20 plots and the guidance in this southwestern Ohio town after DHL Express decided last year to close its operation here, putting most of 8,000 Wilmington Air Park employees out of work. Local unemployment has soared to 15 percent. more »

Waterfront on New River

Heritage Estates Lot 46. 1.3 acres. 100 feet on the river. Anchored gazebo stays. Septic permit. Shared well. Graded and ready to build on. Paved road.

MLS Number: 54345
List Price: $110,000

Very nice lot on New River. Good neighborhood, paved road to lot. Over 100′ on river, has a new gazebo anchored on lot that stays. Septic permit has been pulled as per seller. Grading has been done and shared well on lot. Ready to build on.
Ashe County
Lot Size, Apx Acreage: 1.37
Type: Waterfront
Suitable Use: Residential
Topography: Level, Stream/Creek
Utilities: Total Electric
Water/Sewer: Community Water, Septic Tank
Road Frontage: Private Road, Paved Road
Miscellaneous: 1-5 Acres

click here for listing.

Conserving water is becoming increasingly important as we enter our fourth year of drought in Santa Clara County.

There is also a lot of buzz about water-wise gardening, xeriscaping and environmental responsibility. According to Kevin Galvin, senior water conservation specialist with the Santa Clara Valley Water District, more than half of our residential water is used on landscaping, and the runoff of toxic chemicals and fertilizers into our water system is very high.

We Americans love our lawns, and although that perfectly mowed, lush green lawn is the epitome of beauty for many homeowners, it has many inherent costs. We spend money to purchase and maintain our mowers, edgers and blowers, not to mention the fuel required to run them. The environmental cost of toxic emissions emitted by the equipment also needs to be considered. more »

The Malone Bay community features 18 lots at W. Kerr Scott Dam & Reservoir. Fourteen (14) are Lakefront and meet private dock requirements. All lots have access to public water, saving owners from $5,000 to $10,000 on drilling a well. These lots have public water and will save you the cost of drilling a well. The entire development also features underground utilities.

This is a gated community with lots ranging from 2.3+- acres to 6.8+- acres on the Hwy 421 side of the lake just off South Minton Road, Wilkesboro, NC 28697

W. Kerr Scott Lake is 1500 acres with 50 miles of shoreline and is controlled by the US Army Corps of Engineers. It is clean water with good fishing and is excellent for boating, kayaking, skiing, and swimming. The property is surrounded by National Parks. Wilkesboro is a beautiful community and town with friendly people. It is located just 40 miles east of Boone and Blowing Rock, NC and one and a half hours northwest of Charlotte.

Lot #10

MLS Number: 54632
List Price: $450,000
Lot Size: 2.8 acres
WATERFRONT, PRIVATE DOCK PERMIT, GATED COMMUNITY, PUBLIC WATER, UNDERGROUND UTILITIES
Wilkes MLS Area 2
Suitable Use: Residential, Single Family
Topography: Rolling, Lake/Pond, Exceptional View
Utilities: Underground Utilities
Water/Sewer: Public Water, None-Sewer
Road Frontage: Private Road, Paved Road, Road Maintenance Agreement
Miscellaneous: 1-5 Acres, Hardwoods
Location: Malone Way

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