Oak Garden Furniture

Oak Table - Photo: Flickr

One of the most recognized manufacturers of Oak Garden Furniture are the Amish from Loudonville, Ohio.  They use North American Red Oak or Cherry to create their beautiful Garden Furniture that is great for your patio.  The tops, sides, face, face-frame, and shelves are of solid oak or cherry wood, though pieces of oak and cherry veneers may be used.  The Amish are proud to proclaim that no particleboard, no pressboard, and no masonite type materials used on any of their furniture only real oak grown on their own property.

The natural variations in solid wood grain make the cherry and oak furniture beautiful.  Each piece of Garden Oak Furniture is unique in characteristics as oak wood grain varies in color.  When you use a natural wood stain the coloring will vary if you want to have a consistent color you need to use a different stain.

The Amish usually put a topcoat with state of the art catalyzed clear finish with a satin sheen. This appears as a hand rubbed satin finish, yet offers excellent protection and resistance from spills as varied as water, vinegar, coffee, and even paint thinner. This allows you to use your furniture with peace of mind and cleanup is really simple.  Just use a warm soapy washcloth and the furniture cleans very easily.  Each and every piece of Garden Furniture made by an Amish Craftsmen built in their small shops using age-old attention to detail.  That is why many people prefer Amish furniture for their Oak Garden Furniture quality and durability guaranteed.  A beautiful setting for your patio comes from having Oak Garden Furniture.

The Cedar Station offers Chinese Oak furniture at an affordable price and shipping is free. The Oak Adirondack Chair comes partially assembled with solid brass hardware. The solid Chinese Oak stained with light oil for lasting weather protection.  Cedar Station offers a variety of Western Red Cedar, Java Indonesian Teak, and Chinese Oak outdoor furniture. Chinese oak is a dense but fine-grained hardwood that is 5% harder than red oak.  The Cedar Station is proud to offer Oak Outdoor Furniture all pieces are Chinese Oak and use the industry standard mortise and tenon joinery. This prevents weakening of hinges, especially when left outdoors. Chinese Oak has been kiln dried to prevent warping and cupping. A lot of craftsmanship is used to create this beautiful Garden Patio Furniture set but it still may be bought for a mere $100 with free shipping.

The Cedar Station some of the most exquisite outdoor furniture made from oak, teak, and cedar. They make all types of patio seating, dining chairs, Adirondack chairs, benches, rocking chairs, porch swings, and much more. The use of Chinese Oak makes the product cheaper with the same quality look as oak from regular trees. This type of oak is farmed so that forests will not be used protecting the earth's ecology. Whether you are using the beautiful Amish Oak or the Chinese Oak outdoor furniture lasts for a very long time and makes your patio one to be envied.

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Party 911: Pasta Salad To The Rescue

Pasta Salad - Photo: Pixabay

Has this ever happened to you? You’ve been invited to a party and realize you don’t have a meal to bring. Not only that, but the party starts in an hour. What should you do?

You have four options:

Don’t go, and miss out on a really fun time.

Show up empty-handed and explain red-faced that you forgot.

Grab a casserole dish and head to the deli. Order your food and have them put it right into your casserole dish. Yes, I’ve gone this. It’s expensive but it works. If you get asked for the recipe, just wink and say “It’s Grandma’s secret recipe”.

Whip up a big batch of pasta salad for only a few dollars, and have plenty left over to eat for lunch during the week. You will save money and look good showing up at the party with a great dish.

Pasta salad is truly one of the easiest meals to prepare. All you need are noodles and salad dressing. You can use pretty much any salad dressing on the market – the standards like Italian, Ranch, or, if you’re ambitious, your favorite homemade dressing.

Now for the fun part. Cook the noodles, following package directions and then drain. Pour the dressing on while the noodles are warm so they will absorb all that good oily flavor.

Look around your kitchen to see if you have any of the following ingredients:

• Fresh veggies – carrots, broccoli, green onions
• Frozen vegetables – frozen peas are wonderful in pasta salad
• Cubed or shredded cheese
• Garbanzo beans (also known as Chick Peas)
• Black Olives

Toss in whatever you can find. It’s an ‘everything goes’ type of recipe. Bring more dressing with you in case you need to add it later, and voila! You’re done.

If you’re feeling fancy, you can bring some cherry tomatoes, parmesan cheese, bacon bits or sunflower seeds as toppings. It’s all good.

The next time you are invited to a party, don’t panic. Just grab these instructions and whip up a meal in minutes. Enjoy!

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Tips on Dealing with Slugs and Snails in the Garden

Snail - Photo: Pixabay

One of the most common problems faced by gardeners is one of slugs and snails. Even experienced gardeners tear their collective hair out at the destruction these creatures can cause. So I thought I would give you a few tried and tested tips, and some others perhaps not so well known, to help you deal with them – you won’t get rid of them all together, but at least you will be able to keep them under some sort of control!

They may not all work for you – a lot depends on just how bad the problem is where you live – but it is certainly worth trying some if not all of them. 

Barriers:

These methods will be more effective against snails than slugs, as slugs live in the ground and can, therefore, avoid barriers. 

On your garden borders, you can use barriers around plants, such as crushed eggshells, grit, bran, or wood-ash or soot. The theory is that slugs and snails are reluctant to cross these materials and will, therefore, wander off elsewhere to look for their next meal. Make sure you put plenty down without any gaps.

Scatter oat bran around your plants – slugs love it, but if they eat enough, they expand and die!

Petroleum jelly smeared thickly around the rims of pots has a similar deterrent effect.

You can purchase copper tape with an adhesive backing, which you can stick around the pot sides – this gives the snail a small electric shock as it tries to cross. 

Traps:

Use beer traps – very effective at dealing with both slugs and snails, and you can buy these from a garden centre. Place the trap, filled with cheap beer, in a hole with the top at soil level. You can also use out of date fruit juice, or even milk just about on the turn. Alternatively, make your own by cutting off about 3-4 inches off the base of a plastic drinks bottle.

After eating your half grapefruit, cut a small hole and place the skin upside down on the soil. Slugs love it and will congregate inside and each day you can collect them up.

Collect all the slugs and snails you can find in the late evening when they start to become active and drown them in a bucket of heavily salted water. Plain water will not work – they will simply swim to the surface and crawl out! Or, if you know where they hide out, you can gather them up during the day – try looking under logs or bricks, and shrubs, any dark, damp corner.

And what to do with the slugs you’ve collected? If you put live slugs or snails into your compost heap, they will probably stay there, as there is plenty of matter for them to feast on. You can also put the dead ones in there too, those in the beer traps including the beer – but scoop the dead slugs and snails out of the salty water first. 

Predators:

For a biological control, you can use nematodes – microscopic parasites that kill the slugs above and below ground. Obtained from organic garden suppliers, you simply mix the powder with water and spray on to the soil using a watering can. This can be effective for around six weeks.

If you are lucky enough to have space, adopt some chickens or ducks – they just love eating slugs – and you can have some free eggs into the bargain.

Make your garden wildlife friendly, to encourage the natural predators of slugs and snails to come and visit. Dig a pond to encourage frogs and toads; leave out food for hedgehogs, and put up bird feeders. This will not provide an ‘instant fix’ for the problem, but in the long term will give you a healthier garden with fewer pests.

Till next time, happy slug hunting!

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Barbequed Ribs Kansas City Style

Arthur Bryant's Beef and Ribs - Photo: Flickr

Kansas City ribs are serious business when it comes to BBQ. True to tradition, barbeque in Kansas City is dry rub-spiced, smoked with hickory and coated with a KC style sauce. For Kansas City sauce means a thick, rich and tangy tomato-based sauce with molasses and sometimes a hint of vinegar. The meat is seared, slow cooked and mop basted with sauce until the meat is tender and a nice crust has formed on the outside. Roll up your sleeves and get ready for a sauce that you enjoy getting under your fingernails.

Kansas City’s first recorded barbequer was Henry Perry back in 1908. Perry becomes very well known for his succulent ribs and would serve them to customers who would come from miles away. Perry converted an old trolley barn into a restaurant and would serve is ribs on newspaper for 25 cents a slab. “Old Man Perry’s” restaurant was located at 19th & Highland and was later sold to George Gates and Charlie Bryant. It becomes known as Arthur Bryant’s and is still today regarded as one of America’s greatest rib joints. Today Kansas City boasts over 90 rib restaurants.

As with any rib, first, start by removing the membrane on the back of the rib. This can prove to be difficult with a wet finger. Dry hands and a paper towel work well for this. The paper towel will allow you to get a better grip on the membrane. Evenly coat the ribs with the dry rub, wrap with plastic wrap and then foil. 

Refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours but overnight is best. 30 minutes before you are ready to cook the ribs, remove them from the refrigerator and allow to come to room temperature. Continually mop the ribs with sauce until finished cooking. 

Kansas City Style Dry Rub:

1 C sugar

½ C paprika

¼ C kosher salt

¼ C celery salt

3 tablespoons onion powder

3 tablespoons chili powder

2 tablespoons cumin

2 tablespoons black pepper

2 teaspoons dried mustard powder

1 tablespoon cayenne pepper 

Classic Kansas City Style Sauce:

1 teaspoon seasoned salt

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon mild curry powder

1 teaspoon paprika

½ teaspoon ground allspice

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon mace

½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 C ketchup

¾ C dark unsulphered molasses

½ C white wine vinegar

Author: Scott Schirkofsky

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The Elegant Japanese Maple Bonsai

Japanese Maple Bonsai - Photo: Pixabay

If you are creative, growing the Japanese Maple Bonsai is a great way to make use of your creativity. When growing the Bonsai Tree, you have a variety of choices. The best choice for those who are just beginning to get into this hobby is the Japanese Maple Bonsai. 

The Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree is one of the most beautiful and elegant of the Bonsai Trees, and it is easy to grow and hardy. The official name for the beautiful Japanese Maple is Acer Palmatum. This species really is a great first choice for a Bonsai Tree. 

The typical outdoor maple grows to be very tall, but when pruned properly they make a great Bonsai Tree.

If you are going to buy a Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree, it is best to purchase one that has a trunk of at least four inches in diameter. With this starter, you can train the tree in a variety of different styles. You may also want to go with the Apex or Taper styles. If this were the case, you would need a Japanese Maple Bonsai that has one to two trunk chops.

Some great advantages to the Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree are that it is one of the more affordable Bonsai Trees, and this tree displays a magnificent array of red and purple foliage during the spring. This type of Bonsai Tree can either be grown from a seed, or you may also choose to buy a starter that is around 4 – 6 inches in height.

In addition to the indoor Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree, there is also a larger variety that may be used for an outdoor garden. One of the best things about this type of Bonsai Tree is that the color of the leaves changes frequently providing colorful and elegant beauty to your garden, indoors or out.

In the spring, the Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree has leaves that are bright red in color, but as they mature, they turn pink. During the summer the leaves take on a green color with pink tinges, and in the fall months, the edges of the leaves turn a dark pink-red color that soon spreads to the whole leaf. When all the leaves have changed, the Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree is solid scarlet, a really superb tree.

The Japanese Maple Bonsai Tree is a great way to start your Bonsai tree collection; it is not only one of the easiest, but one of the most beautiful as well.

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Beer Through the Years

Photo: Pixabay

No one really knows exactly how the first beer came into being ...

Suffice it to say that, around 10,000 years ago, somebody let a primordial barley and hop concoction stand long enough for it to ferment. The result not only made anonymous history, it was the genesis of beer's own special influence throughout the ages.

Here are a few examples of note:

It was the accepted practice in Babylonia, as early as 4000 years ago, that for a month after a wedding, the bride's father would supply his son-in-law with all the mead he could drink. Mead is a honey beer, and because their calendar was lunar based, this period was called the "honey month" or what we know today as the "honeymoon." I have also heard that the custom included one of the most resourceful bits of propaganda ever created for husbands. As the story went, if the groom drank mead for an entire moon, it would enhance the chances of his wife bearing a male heir. The bride, however, had to abstain from drinking alcohol at all. I'll leave the punchlines to you.

After consuming a bucket or two of vibrant brew they called ‘aul,’ or ‘ale,’ a certain self-appointed breed of Vikings would head fearlessly into battle without armor, or even without shirts. In fact, the term "berserk" means "bare shirt" in Norse, and eventually took on the meaning of their wild behavior in battle. They believed that Odin’s favor was all they needed for protection, and if they were to die in combat, it was only because The Allfather decided it was their time to enter the hallowed halls of Valhalla. This was Odin's great ‘Castle of the Chosen Slain,’ where 'inductees' would spend eternity in Viking nirvana, ie- fighting all day, having their wounds miraculously heal at sundown, and then partying all night, with generous quantities of ale at their beck and call.

Before thermometers were invented, brewers would dip a thumb or finger into the mix to find the right temperature for adding yeast. Too cold, and the yeast wouldn't grow. Too hot, and the yeast would die. This practice is where we get the phrase, "rule of thumb."

The first known consumer protection act arose with the German Beer Purity Law of 1516, known as Rheinheitsgebot. This decreed that, in order to be called 'beer,' a beverage could only consist of four ingredients: malt, hops, yeast, and water. This is such a revered regulation that when the European Union-facilitated the introduction of other beers into the German market, it took a court order for many stores to sell them. Most of those beers contained preservatives, and to a respectable German, that meant --- and still does --- that such beverages were not beer.

In English pubs, ale is ordered by pints and quarts. So, in olde England, when customers got unruly, the bartender would yell at them to mind their own pints and quarts and settle down. It's where we get the phrase, "mind your P’s and Q's."

Also in England's olden days, pub frequenters often had a whistle baked into the rim or handle of their ceramic cups. When they needed a refill, they used the whistle to get some service. "Wet your whistle" is the phrase inspired by this practice.

In 1740, Admiral Vernon of the British fleet decided to water down the navy's rum. Needless to say, the sailors weren't too pleased and called Admiral Vernon “Old Grog,” after the stiff wool grogram coats he wore. The term "grog" soon began to mean the watered down drink itself. When you were drunk on this grog, you were "groggy," a word that has been expanded to include the effects of too much beer and is still in use today.

There are numerous quotations which pay homage to beer. Allow me to list three of the wittiest:

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink, I feel ashamed. Then, I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'"

-- Saturday Night Live's faux-philosopher, Jack Handy

"Put it back in the horse!"

-- W C Fields, disapproving of a sub-standard brew

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

-- Benjamin Franklin

Given a good pint, composed of God's natural ingredients and nurtured by man's learned craft, beer has made us very happy, indeed.

Just keep the joy below 0.08% of your blood content.

Author: J Square Humboldt

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Guaranteed Gladioli, Summer Colour That Returns

Gladiolus - Photo: Pixabay

Would you like a summer bedding plant that you do not have to renew year after year? Well by planting hybrid Gladiolus corms, you can attain mid to late summer colour year after year with only occasional renewal.

Colourful blooms

Sometimes called gladioli bulbs (more correctly gladioli corms), these South African members of the Iris family are ideal for colour impact. Most garden centres stock gladioli in whites, pinks, oranges, reds (best for impact), bicolour and the rare blue-flowered varieties.

Planting

Most Gladiolus flowers last approx 2 to 3 weeks, so if you’re sneaky and stagger your plantings at weekly intervals you can stretch out the length of time they will be in bloom. Plant from the start of April till the end of May in an area that receives upwards of 4 hours of sunlight a day. Plant the bulbs 4 to 5 inches deep (10 to 12cm) and at an approximate spacing of 4 inches, ideally, your soil will be rich with free drainage to prevent rotting of the bulb over winter. Group the bulbs in clusters of 5 or more of the same colour for impact, except in a cottage garden where the mixing up of Gladiolus colours is quite acceptable. It is advisable to water well in dry weather as the foliage can be extremely thirsty. Look after the cultivation requirements and you will be rewarded by sword-like leaves topped by trumpet or funnel-shaped flowers in vertical rows which bloom from the bottom upwards. The sword-like leaves inspire the Latin name Gladiolus which means little sword, in fact, some people refer to them as sword lilies.

Flower arranging uses

Gladiolus flowers can be cut for indoor arrangements by using 3 to 5 different colours bunched together, just be careful not to remove all the leaves from the bulb as this will severely weaken its bloom next season.

Miniature hybrids

When purchasing your Gladiolus bulbs in the garden centre ask for Primulinus or miniature hybrids as these varieties grow to about 2ft (0.6 meters) and do not require staking like some of the larger varieties.

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