Yuji Sakai/Getty Images Although carrots are not the easiest vegetable to grow, they’re a sweet and earthy addition to your home-grown repertoire. Whether you like your carrots roasted or as a crudité, read on to learn about the various types and how to grow carrots. Types of Carrots To Grow Choose a kind based on your garden soil and culinary preferences. On This Page Imperator carrots can grow up to ten inches long....
OSVALDRU/Shutterstock Your grandmother wants to pass her prized tea set and china collection on to you. Your godmother has a collection of valuable artwork that’s not your style. Your own mother is looking to clear out her jewelry box and says you need to take some of your favorite pieces. But, you don’t want any of it. So how do you politely decline a family heirloom? When it comes to getting rid of family heirlooms, many baby boomers and Gen Xers aren’t prepared for the task....
via Guardian News/YouTube If you like the look and price tag of IKEA furniture but hate the assembly process, you’re not alone. Hilarious, satirical videos make light of the very frustrating, curse-worthy process of piecing together what feels like a million parts into the piece of furniture you admired in the photo or on the showroom floor. Now there’s finally some hope in the form of a robot! A team of researchers at Control Robotics Intelligence (CRI) group at NTU in Singapore have designed the IKEABot....
Instant Pot If you haven’t already experienced the wonder that is the Instant Pot, now is the time to get the Instant Pot Duo ($99)! It not only does work as an electric pressure cooker, but it’s also a rice cooker, yogurt maker, steamer, slow cooker and warmer. Plus: Check out 40 kitchen organizing ideas that will save your sanity. Shop Now Digital Meat Thermometer Never overcook (or undercook) a ribeye again with this digital meat thermometer ($11)....
What is a notched trowel? A notched trowel is used to spread adhesive and thin set. It differs from a regular trowel in that it has notches, usually on two sides of the blade. Running a notched trowel over adhesive or thinset leaves behind rows of the product. How much adhesive is left behind depends on the size of the notches; the larger the notch, the more material is left behind....
Slithering their way over terrain with a bulbous, mushroom-shaped cranium, hammerhead worms (AKA arrowhead flatworms, land planarians or “landchovies”) are always on the hunt for their favorite meal: slugs, soil-dwelling insect larvae, common earthworms and — when the pickings are slim — other hammerhead worms! What makes this cannibalistic creature more gruesome than your standard, everyday garden worm is the way it kills its victims. It stuns them with a sticky, neurotoxin that incapacitates and then liquefies them for easier digesting....
It’s always alarming to find mold growing in your house, but it’s important to remember that you can do something about it. Understanding the kind of mold you’ve got is a start. Fusarium is a family of molds with more than 300 species. Although most can’t grow indoors, some do. Moisture is the trigger for Fusarium growth, and reducing moisture levels is the first practical step towards a solution. What Is Fusarium Mold?...
In many parts of the country, it’s officially winter storm season again. If you find yourself scratching your head wondering, When did they start naming winter storms? Or even, Who names winter storms? You are in the right place. We’re here to walk you through the process of how winter storms get named. Plus, you’ll also learn some helpful tips and tricks to ensure your home is prepared to weather the upcoming winter storm season....
Fireflies are the ultimate summer bug. Nothing evokes the season like a warm June evening surrounded by these otherworldly creatures. And you can bet many scientists made their first field observations with a firefly in a jar. Fireflies, AKA lightning bugs, emerge in late May or June and immediately start looking for a mate. That’s why they glow. They have to make it snappy, too, because fireflies only live a few weeks as adult beetles....
Fans of HGTV’s Fixer Upper know Chip and Joanna Gaines aren’t strangers to out-of-this-world renovations. But just when you thought there was nothing they hadn’t already done, they stepped up their game—and this time, they may have beaten every project they’ve ever done before. They just renovated a castle—specifically, the historic Cottonland Castle. Situated near downtown Waco, Texas, the Cottonland Castle is the focal point of the couple’s new Magnolia Network limited series Fixer Upper: The Castle....
Family Handyman How to Order Concrete This article explains how to order concrete and concrete slab cost. We’ll use a 10 x 10 ft. slab as an example. Here’s a brief rundown of what you need to know about concrete and concrete prices. For example, how much is a yard of concrete? Find out the cost of concrete per yard below. On This Page In this video we’ll show you how to figure out the amount of concrete you need to order for your project:...
Organize Your Coffee Pods Coffee pods can be a disaster to keep organized, but this hack uses simple T-molding as an ideal organization system for Keurig, Nespresso or any other type of coffee pod. T-molding is designed for wood floor transitions, and it also makes a perfect storage rack for coffee pods because it has grooves for the pods to slide onto. To start, measure the diameter of the top of the coffee pod (to figure out the spacing needed between each piece of molding) and cut the T-molding to the length of your cabinet....
Pineapples are an exotic, tropical fruit grown mainly in South America and Costa Rica. Just because you don’t live in a tropical climate doesn’t mean you can’t grow your own pineapple plant. Planting your own pineapple plant is a fairly simple project, even if you’re relatively new to houseplants. All you need is some potting soil, a pot and one fresh pineapple. Best Conditions for Pineapple Plants Oh, and sunlight. For a pineapple plant to grow, it will need around six hours of sunlight a day....
Sump pumps are low-profile home protection heroes. They may not be as costly as a furnace or used as often as a refrigerator, but they’re an essential part of keeping your home safe and dry. As such, the sump pump should be part of your regular home inspection ritual. What is a Sump Pump? Sump pumps move water out of low-lying areas, like a basement or crawlspace. That keeps your home dry, discourages mold and mildew growth and keeps insect and rodent populations down....
Nataliia Melnychuk/Shutterstock If you want a low-maintenance flower bed that looks good year after year, these steps will make it happen. Amend the Soil It’s been said before: a good garden starts with good soil. No matter what kind of soil you have, you can improve it—and the best time to do that is before you plant. Add several inches of compost and peat moss, turning it over by the shovelful to mix it into the top 6 to 8 inches of soil....
We all know the importance of proper lighting to any DIY project. In most cases, portable and tripod mounted work lights are fine. But in tight quarters, like under your kitchen sink or the crawlspace of your home, there’s no substitute for a quality headlamp. I’ve owned the same $20 headlamp for the past decade, though I kept hearing about the advances and benefits of new age, high-tech headlamps. So I decided to give the Fenix HM65R headlamp a try....
A year ago, Kenoteq was just another startup with a sleek name and an idea for creating more sustainable construction materials. Now the Scottish company is gaining notoriety for its latest creation: the K-Briq. What is the K-Briq? The K-Briq is a building brick made with 90 percent recycled construction materials and demolition waste. Manufacturing a K-Briq creates less than one-tenth of the carbon emissions than a standard brick. That’s largely because K-Briqs are “unfired,” or produced without being heated....
So you go to pour a late-night bowl of cereal, when a bizarre insect comes flying out of the box. The scenario is enough to make you scream and run from the kitchen — surely you’ve lost your appetite. The pest is likely a silverfish. The fact is, silverfish and these other pests could be be hiding in your attic or under your sink right now. What is a Silverfish? Silverfish are ancient shiny gray or silver insects that are thought to be one of the oldest in the world....
Fire management specialist Tobin Kelley and a fellow officer were knocking on doors in the mountains around Colorado Springs in 2002, warning residents about the impending Hayman Fire, when they came across the most fire-hardened house they’d ever seen. “The homeowners had cleared all of the vegetation out from a large diameter around the house, plus the house had been stuccoed, had a steel roof and steel shutters that could be swung over the windows,” says Kelley, who recently retired....
I learned the proper way to swing a claw hammer from an 18-year-old coworker on a construction project. I was new to the jobsite and had a habit of holding the hammer halfway up the handle. She suggested gripping it at the end. That small change made all the difference. I was pleased how easy it was to accurately hit nails. It took two or three swings to sink one, instead of five or six....
