1:45
It is March. This is the time of year that many people are shopping for their landscape trees, shrubs, and fruit trees. Here are some tips for preparing your trees and shrubs.
The first tip, if you re purchasing bare-root, this is a great way to go. These trees and shrubs are usually less expensive. They were some that were harvested last fall kept in cold storage. Just remember, bare-root trees and shrubs need to go in the ground quickly. Don t let them dry out or sit in the heat.
Next thing, you re balled-and-burlapped b&b stock. These were also dug up last fall and wrapped in burlap to protect and preserve the root system with some soil on those roots. These can go for short periods out of the ground, but once you purchase them, again, you ll want to get them in the ground quickly.
Credit InSapphoWeTrust, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en
“Quality of life and wellbeing have always been really important to leaders and decision-makers in Utah. But we often use existing data that we have either from the census or other indicators and don t have as many mechanisms to just reach out and ask folks about how they re doing. And so this is a way to do that,” said Dr. Courtney Flint, who works USU Extension and developed the Utah Wellbeing Project
Cities across the state can choose to participate in the project and ask citizens about how they’re doing through a short survey. Efforts began in 2019 with 16 cities and grew to 30 cities this year. Because of the pandemic, the survey looks a little different this year.
2:00
America Saves Week has been an annual event since 2007. It is held the last week of February and focuses on helping people save money. Most people would like to put more money in savings, but it can be daunting to get started. The Americasaves.org website is a great place to start. You can set savings goals and sign up for email and text reminders to help keep you on track. Consider these savings tips.
Save Automatically - This is the secret sauce to financial success. Automatically having your money direct deposited from your paycheck into a savings account increases your chances of saving by 100%. And if the money is out of sight and out of mind, you are less likely to withdraw it for random purchases. The book, The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, is a good read for anyone who wants to become a regular saver. If you don’t have automatic savings set up, doing this is a great first step.
1:49
Today s topic is how to put up a no vacancy sign for the Douglas-fir beetles. Most people are aware of the destruction to large swaths of forest trees brought about by a tiny insect group called bark beetles.
In addition to damaging timber resources, beetle-killed trees negatively impact campgrounds residential sites and increase wildfire severity. Research has found that pheromones, which are chemical cues used in communication within a species, are present in bark beetles and produce two types: aggregation and anti-aggregation.
Aggregation pheromones are released by female Douglas-fir beetles to serve the purpose attracting mates and large numbers of beetles to come and help them overwhelm the tree defenses.
1:58
I m in shock. It s already February. I did get my asparagus seeds planted last month, and they re just coming up. My leftover seeds from 2020 have also been inventory. And I m going to run germination tests on those starting this weekend.
I ve been looking at seed catalogs, and we ll purchase some seed this month as well. Having gone through last year, when there were some shortages, I m going to make sure that I have what I needed. I m not going to buy too much- just enough to plant for what we need here and in the home garden. I don t think that shortages will occur again this year.