Fall cleanup doesn’t have to mean filling bags with leaves and hauling them away. If you’ve got a garden, flower beds, trees, or even a few struggling patches of soil, those leaves can do useful work for you all winter. Used properly, fall mulch helps protect the ground, hold moisture, moderate temperature swings, and reduce the amount of work waiting for you when spring arrives. And the best part? Much of the material is already sitting in your yard. Put Nature to Work Walk

When most people hear the word homestead, they picture a farmhouse, a big garden, a barn, livestock and enough land to disappear into. That’s the traditional picture. But you don't need 40 acres—or even five—to start producing more of your own food. A backyard, side yard, patio or even a small patch of ground can become a surprisingly productive mini-farm if you use the space intelligently. And there's a practical reason to consider it: every tomato, pepper, cucumber or dozen

There’s no good reason to watch a perfectly good herb garden disappear when the weather turns cold. If you grew rosemary, thyme, sage, oregano, basil, parsley, dill or other useful herbs this year, you already did the hard part. Now it’s time to put some of that harvest away for winter. Done right, a few hours of work during the growing season can leave you with jars, bags and freezer containers full of herbs for soups, roasts, stews, sauces and seasoning long after the garde