Tag: #outdoors

Getting Your Garden Ready for the Cold

Posted on | by Allison Zuck

Summer has officially ended here in Georgia. We’ve hit the colder months now. While our gardens flourish in the summer, it’s easy to forget about them when autumn rolls around. Here are a few tips for how to keep your garden doing well all through out the winter.

First, weed your plot! You don’t want to let your yard get overgrown as fall and winter come around. It wouldn’t be good to be trying to pull weeds while freezing!

Second, take a look at your soil. Now would be a great time to add good enrichments and nutrients. This means that it’ll be a breeze to get your garden ready in spring. In the same vein, check out all your plants. If you have dead or rotting plants, just get rid of them now! You can replace these plants with heartier winter plants, so that you don’t have to look at your garden filled with nothing! Instead, you’ll be able to see abundance in the winter as well!

Finally, don’t forget about your winged friends. Not only are they lovely to look at, they’ll also snack on those pesky bugs. So, fill up your bird feeder and enjoy all the feathered friends that will come!

Remember that these tips are not just for your own home! You can use these to spruce up any rental properties that you may own. You want to keep that curbside appeal high, even into the colder months!

Memorial Day Cookout Ideas

Posted on | by Allison Zuck

Memorial Day is a great time to spend the day with family and friends cooking out in the backyard. It’s a great way to usher in the beginning of summer, with friends and food! Obviously, you’ll want the first cookout of the year to be a hit, and sometimes it can be hard to plan the perfect menu! Here are a few tips for what you can make for it to be a success!

Side Dishes

It’s usually good to have quite a few side dishes, so that everyone can have their favorites. Fruit is a good place to start, as watermelon, a fruit salad, or pineapple can be very refreshing. Speaking of fruit salad, salad is always a good idea. But don’t rely on lettuce to make your salads. Instead, pasta salad, macaroni salad, or potato salad are always good to have a heaping spoonful of! And, most store sell delicious pre-made versions, so you don’t have to worry about making another dish from scratch. And, if you want a warm side dish, baked beans are usually a hit!

Main Dishes

A cookout doesn’t have to just be burgers and hot dogs, although those are always favorites! Maybe try some Italian sausage or bratwurst as something a little different. They’re fantastic plain, but also taste good with different types of mustard. And, if you do want to stick with hamburgers, there are different recipes that you can try to spice things up. You can stuff your burgers, buy some different flavors at the store, or you can try this recipe that copy’s Red Robin’s Banzai Burger: https://topsecretrecipes.com/red-robin-the-banzai-burger-copycat-recipe.html.

Dessert

Arguably the most important part of any cookout is the dessert. The most satisfying dessert can be the easiest. You can grab ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, or make some brownies to eat with ice cream. Mainly, you just want something cold to eat, so that you’ll feel refreshed at the end of your cookout.

Cookouts don’t have to be stressful, and coming up with a solid plan for Memorial Day will make the holiday a blast!

Getting a Sweet Summer Yard

Posted on | by Allison Zuck

Summer is the perfect time of the year to spend lots of time outside enjoying your yard! It’s great to get outside and enjoy the great outdoors! But, maybe your yard doesn’t look quite how you want it to look. There are plenty of easy ways to spruce up your property so that you can enjoy it all summer long, no matter what you want it to look like!

A Nice Place to Sit

First off, you need a place where you’re comfortable sitting outside. Figure out what furniture you want to lounge on in the sun. Get a few pots and plant pretty flowers! Get nice outdoor cushions and pillows. Maybe even hang up some string lights so that you can sit out long after the sun goes down. Make your patio a place that you want to be.

Try Your Hand at Gardening

This summer could be the perfect time to create your own garden. You could go lots of directions with it: flowers, vegetables, herbs. Sit down before you go to buy seeds and figure out what exactly you want to do, so you don’t get overwhelmed with options once you get to the store. An easy way to gain ideas on what to garden is to look around your own neighborhood. See what your neighbors plant and then maybe do that yourself. Then you have the added bonus of being able to ask them for advice! Then, plot out the best place in your yard based off of what you want to plant. If you don’t have a shady area, make sure you are buying products that require full sun! You may need to prepare your soil as well, if you’ve never gardened before.

Don’t Forget Your Lawn

Just because the grass doesn’t need as much care as flowers and shrubs, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need any care. Make sure to give your lawn a round of fertilizer. Mow the yard so that it doesn’t become too overgrown. Cutting the grass helps it stay healthy for longer! If that takes too much time for you to do personally, and you have the resources, look into a yard service to take care of these things for you.

Whatever you decide to do with your lawn this summer, make sure it makes you happy. You want your yard to be a place that makes you happy, no matter what it looks like. And, don’t forget to water your plants and lawn!