DIY Life

Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

Mmm-mmm. Fresh basil. It's so very fragrant -- the indispensable ingredient in a host of mid-summer recipes.

My basil is lush, green and ready for picking. Okay, I don't have a whole lot of it out in my garden; however, I'm planning on growing a lot more next summer. In preparation for that lofty enterprise, I thought it'd be cool to find out how the expert basil-growers harvest their beloved herb. Here are some tips I picked up:

1. Know your basil. There are lots of varieties out there, and it's always good to know which one you have, as the flavors vary quite a bit between them. Chances are good that, like me, you've got the most common variety: Genovese sweet basil.

We all want beautifully landscaped yards, but have you checked the prices at your local nursery lately? Why line the pockets of another when you can save money by rooting your own plant cuttings, resulting in a spectacular garden for very little money.

If your yard is like mine, you have a few old and wild shrubs and bushes that need to be cut back, but also some bare spots just crying out for some greenery and blossoms.

Logic would have it that you can solve both of your problems if you knew how to use your cuttings to get new plants.

Generally, you can cut a healthy section off of a plant, dip it into a rooting stimulant and use a sterile rooting medium to propagate your new plants.

What, you say? If all that was as Greek to you as it was to me, you'll find The Savvy Gardener's article as helpful as I did. Not only are specifics discussed in easy-to-understand language, but there is a helpful chart that tells you the best techniques for the type of plant you wish to root.

Do you have any rooting tips that have worked in your garden? Do tell.

UPDATE: Looks like the link above has changed or has gone missing. Here's the updated page.