News — home & garden

With autumn officially here, the first big snowstorm of the season is capable of arriving at a moment’s notice. As such, there is no better way to spend your dwindling days of beautiful weather than to prepare your home for the impending winter. From weatherproofing surfaces to checking the quality of your building envelope, there are a number of steps that can protect your home from the elements. Keep reading to discover several pro tips for preparing your home for a harsh winter.   Have the Necessary Tools Readily Available The best preparation any homeowner can make to survive winter...

Other than being creepy, crawling, icky and scary what do you know about insects?   What might seem like a page from a Stephen King novel, the Smithsonian Institute’s Department of Entomology’s, Terry Erwin, discovered there are some 10 quintillion (that’s with 19 zeros) individual insects alive on the earth. But don’t get worried because there’s only 91,000 species in the U.S. (butterflies number in at 750 species but they’re so cute I’m not sure we should count them). Okay, back to reality there are 300 pounds of insects for every pound of human so easy on those Big Macs. Some...

  When I was a kid during Saturday lawn chores you’d hear my dad yell “Get me the Chlordane,” or “Someone didn’t put the “Paraquat away,” and “Go to the hardware store and buy some sodium methyldithiocarbamate (actually he said Vapam).” These are either hardcore insect sprays, weed killers and soil fumigants that have been taken off the market for years. And, let’s not forget the neighbors used to lend this stuff to each other over the fence while eating a sandwich. Today it’s a different story. Insecticides, herbicides, rodenticides, molluscicides and all the “cides” are ever changing in this...

Did you know that many things gardening typically begins on the farm? Farmers are usually the trailblazers in bringing products we use for our garden to the consumer marketplace. Or, at the very least inspiring the inventors of the world to make something better and easier to use. For instance, in the 1850’s an insect called the Colorado Beetle was devastating the potato industry. A gravity fed leather knapsack, (think of a bota bag backpack on steroids – which probably leaked all over you), oozed a chemical solution out of a sprinkler head as the farmer painstakingly walked every inch...

    Sprayers are essential tools for completing various tasks around your land and home, and Chapin Professional Farm & Field Sprayers help you get the job done.  This Chapin Proseries Sprayer line includes our 21240XP, (2 gallon), and 21250XP, (3 gallon), hand compression tank sprayers.  These sprayers are easy to use and designed for application of weed and pest control products, fungicides and fertilizers.  Translucent poly tanks allow monitoring of fluid levels and wide 4 inch openings make them easy to fill.  Brass extension wands, brass shut-offs, brass nozzles, fluoropolymer elastomer seals, and reinforced hoses will hold up to...