Chili adds spice and flavor to all varieties of food, ranging from Mexican recipes to curry dishes. Chilies make great side dishes and they can also be bottled up as hot sauce. If one loves the hot spicy kick in one’s food, home grown chilies are the best option. With chilies growing in one’s yard, one can be assured that there is a lasting supply of homegrown chili to spice up one’s appetite.

There’s such an abundance of scraps from food preparation that it seems a waste to just throw them in a garbage dump somewhere. Outdoor composting is an excellent way to dispose of vegetable matter and give your garden or landscaping a little boost in nutrition. Done properly, composting will not have a foul odor. There are a few things to know about making one. Meats and bones are the biggest sources of odor and draw animals to it. It’s also not good to add them in any form because of their decomposition methodology. Rotten meat stinks whether it’s cooked or not. Things like rinsed egg shells are okay to add, but shells not rinsed can be a smelly attractant, too. Egg shells can put calcium into your compost so it’s a good addition.

Those of us with trees in our yards are all too familiar with the sight of leaves covering the ground each autumn. But don’t throw those dead leaves away! Turn your trash into treasure by transforming it into cheap and nutritious compost for your garden.

For newly married couples who have just bought their first home, may be looking into growing their own vegetables to help save money on food costs. Especially when couples are trying to save money to start a family. Despite what most people think, August is the best time to start planting seeds for a vegetable garden. By the time the vegetables are ready, it will already be fall where the cooler weather will be setting in. The best vegetables to plant for cooler weather temperatures are carrots, green leafy vegetables, peas, beets, lettuce, radishes, turnips, cabbage, kale, endive, chard, kohlrabi, broccoli, spinach, brussell sprouts, and cauliflower. People will be amazed at the great tastes that these vegetables will have compared to ones that are planted in warmer spring temperatures. Cooler temperatures bring some of the best tasting vegetables than most stores could ever hope to have. The vegetables that are planted in the fall are also much healthier than most other vegetables.

There’s something undeniably serene and lovely about sitting near a tranquil pond. Those who design public parks have long been aware of this and incorporated ponds accordingly, making a place for fowl such as ducks and geese to rest as visitors watch from a bench in the grass, often with a bag full of breadcrumbs in hand.