Ajax Pickering Real Estate Blog

How to keep your garden healthy and vigorous

Tending a garden can be one of the simple joys of home ownership. If you’re planning on planting your first backyard crops this summer, taking the time to learn a little more about your soil could help you reap a more fruitful harvest.

To help you get the most out of your garden this season, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) offers the following tips for keeping your soil in top shape:

• Many of the most common soil problems are related to texture. The texture of a soil is determined by its relative proportion of sand, silt and clay. In general, clay soils tend to be fertile but are often wet and poorly drained. Sandy soils drain easily but can be drought-prone and infertile. Loam, probably the most desirable soil texture, retains moisture and is fertile, crumbly and easy to work with.

• To determine your soil’s texture, dry and crush a small amount by rubbing it in the palm of your hand. Then rub a pinch of the soil between your thumb and fingers. The grainier the soil feels, the higher its sand content is likely to be.

• To test for clay, squeeze some moist soil in your hand and then pass it from hand to hand. The more it holds together, the higher the percentage of clay.

• Other important qualities of good soil include its structure and porosity, moisture, fertility, pH level and the presence of earthworms, ants and other life forms that can contribute to the health of your plants. To find out more about these and other characteristics of your soil, contact your local garden centre, soil testing laboratory, or provincial agriculture ministry or department.

• Once you are armed with a basic understanding of your soil’s properties, you can select plants that will be better suited to thrive in your garden and site conditions such as sun, shade and anticipated rainfall. Local nurseries, conservation agencies, plant catalogues, books and websites can all help you identify which plants can tolerate a variety of soil textures and which are likely to have more specific soil requirements.

• Although picking the right plants for your soil will minimize the need to add fertilizers or other amendments, there may still be some situations in which these additions will be unavoidable. If your garden has a high clay content, for example, you will probably need to aerate the soil and work in some organic matter such as well-rotted manure, compost, grass clippings or leaves.

• When your soil is in a healthy state, consider installing a rain garden to help maintain your plants. A rain garden is an attractive, easy and inexpensive way to reduce runoff and allow stormwater to soak more slowly into the ground.

For more information or a free copy of the “About Your House” fact sheet entitled Get to Know Your Soil or other fact sheets on owning, maintaining or renovating your home, call CMHC at 1-800-668-2642 or visit our website at www.cmhc.ca. For more than 60 years, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has been Canada’s national housing agency, and a source of objective, reliable housing expertise.

New Homes & Condos Magazine is an excellent source of housing information for those looking for information on new homes in Ontario, Canada. We offer the most up-to-date information on new communities across the Greater Toronto Area.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960

Mistaken Identity

Carpenter Ants should not be confused with termites. Termites are white in colour and are smaller than a grain of rice. Carpenter ants look like regular black ants, except a little bigger. Adult carpenter ants grow to be as much as one-half inch long. Queens are often twice that size.

If you get really intimate with a carpenter ant you will notice that they have bent or “elbowed” antennae. They only have one node or bump on the joint between their thorax and abdomen (the thorax is the middle section and the abdomen is the rear section), and the thorax on some carpenter ants is burnt orange or chestnut red in colour. They also have hairy abdomens.

You will never see a termite unless you break open a piece of infested wood or a shelter tube (tunnels that termites use to get from the soil, where they live, to the wood they are eating). Carpenter ants, on the other hand, roam around looking for food the same way ordinary ants do.

Termites eat wood. Carpenter ants do not. Instead, they burrow into wood to make a nest and they push the wood and other debris (called frass) out of their colonies. The inside of the infested wood is spotlessly clean and consists of smooth galleries through the wood.

Finding A Home

Most carpenter ant nests are outdoors in tree stumps, fence posts, and unfortunately, sometimes in porches. But these ants will also nest indoors in rotten or damp wood or sound wood adjacent to a source of moisture such as a sweaty pipe, washing machines, dishwashers or baseboards in damp areas. Although they normally excavate their colonies, they sometimes live in hollow doors, window frames, etc.

Carpenter ants are omnivorous meaning they eat all different types of food. Outdoors they eat plants, insects, (their favourite are aphids), fruit, etc. Indoors they eat household foodstuff, especially syrup, honey, sugar, fat and grease.

On their way back to the colony, they rarely take the same route twice, which can make it difficult to locate the nest. Even though the colony may be indoors, most of the ants will go outdoors to feed. This also reduces the likelihood of detection. To make matters worse, the ants are more active at night than in the daytime and some colonies go dormant during the winter. (The colony is most active during the spring and summer.)

Coming Out of the Closet

In the summer months, swarms of winged carpenter ants (both male and female) leave the colony. They mate on the fly, return to earth and shed their wings. The female (queen) then finds a suitable place to lay her eggs which hatch into larvae. The larvae develop into adults in 2 to 10 months depending on the temperature. These adults are workers and at this stage the colony is only a queen plus 10 to 20 workers. The colony takes 3 to 6 years to develop, during which time the queen lays eggs and the workers care for the young. A queen has a life expectancy of 8 to 12 years while workers can live 4 or 5 years. When the colony has developed, winged males and females form. They remain in the colony over the winter and take flight the next summer to begin the process again. A developed colony may contain thousands of ants. Needless to say, the damage to wooden components can be significant to make a home for this many ants.

Kissing Your Ants Goodbye

We have to find the colony to get rid of the ants. This can be tricky. Sawdust at entrances to the colony is one method. Listening for the ants is another. At quiet times, a dry rustling sound can be heard from the colony (some specialists use stethoscopes to listen for them). If you bang on the wood, it disturbs them and the noise level from the colony will increase. Finding and eliminating the colony is best left to a pest control specialist.

Your best defence against carpenter ants is elimination of damp environments and rotted wood within the home. Storing firewood adjacent to the house or in the basement is not wise. While chemical treatment can kill the colony, they’ll be back next year if suitable conditions exist.

This article was submitted by Carson Dunlop, a Toronto based Consulting Engineering company that has specialized in Home Inspection since 1978. For more information, call 1-800-268-7070 or visit www.carsondunlop.com.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960

What is carbon monoxide?

• CO is a colourless, odorless, tasteless gas.
• It is a by-product of incomplete combustion (unburned fuel such as gas, oil, wood, etc.)
• Low concentrations of CO can go undetected and can contribute to ongoing, unidentified illnesses. At high concentrations, it can be deadly.

Why is it dangerous?

If there is CO in the air you breath, it will enter your blood system the same way oxygen does, through your lungs. The CO displaces the oxygen in your blood, depriving your body of oxygen. When the CO displaces enough oxygen, you suffocate.

What are the symptoms?

Continued exposure or high concentrations
• Confusion
• Severe headaches
• Cardiac problems
• Breathing difficulties
• Brain damage
• Dizziness
• Death

Long term exposure to low concentrations
• Slight headaches
• Fatigue
• Shortness of breath with only moderate exertion
• Nausea
• Dizziness and confusion

Why is it called the “great immitator”?

• Symptoms of CO poisoning are very similar to the flu.
• Illness in your pets just preceding illness in a family member may suggest CO poisoning.

Who is at greater risk?

• Senior citizens
• Unborn babies
• People with respiratory or coronary problems
• Infants
• Pregnant women
• Young children

Note: Vulnerable people who are exposed even to low levels of CO for long time periods may have similar health affects as those exposed to high concentrations of CO.

What can produce CO in our homes?

Anything that burns fuel or generates combustion gases including
• Gas Stoves
• Fireplaces
• Automobiles
• Barbecues
• Furnaces
• Ranges
• Boilers
• Space heaters
• Water heaters

Solid fuels, such as wood, always produce carbon monoxide when they are burned. Gas and liquid fuels may produce no CO or very little.

What are the most common sources of carbon monoxide?

1. Automobile exhaust in attached garages. This is responsible for 60% of all CO alarms. People who warm their cars up in the garage are trapping CO inside the garage. The CO can find its way into the home.

2. Gas cooking appliances. Reported to account for 20% of CO alarms. May be a result of a misused, poorly maintained, poorly installed, or unvented cooking appliance.

3. Poor draft/venting for fuel burning appliances. This is one of the most common and serious causes for CO build up and has been reported to account for up to 19% of CO alarms. The products of combustion are not being safely expelled to the exterior. This could be due to venting problems, such as blocked chimney flues or inadequate venting for appliances or fireplaces. Other problems include poor installation and negative air pressure in the house, causing backdrafting, often due to exhaust fans.

4. Poor combustion at furnace. Inadequate combustion air to the furnace can result in incomplete combustion. If the furnace has a cracked heat exchanger, it is possible to get CO into the circulating air. It is also imperative that we do not deprive our heating equipment and fuel burning appliances of air; especially in air-tight homes where running exhaust fans can result in a shortage of combustion air. Combustion air is essential for safe operation of furnaces, water heaters, and other fuel burning equipment.

5. Leakage. A leak in a chimney or flue pipe.

6. Ventilation. Barbecues or gasoline powered equipment operating in a attached garage, basement, or enclosed area.

Are there more problems with carbon monoxide today than 30 years ago?

Yes, due to:
• More energy-efficient, air-tight homes
• Less natural ventilation

How can I guard against carbon monoxide poisoning?

The first line of defense is to have your home heating systems, fuel burning appliances, flues and chimneys checked and/or cleaned annually.

Inspection checklist:
• Blocked openings to flues and chimneys
• Cracked,rusted,or disconnected flue pipes
• Dirty filters
• Rusted or cracked heat exchangers
• Soot or creosote build-up inside fireplaces and chimney flues
• Exhaust or gas odours.
• Attached garages require gas proofing and automatic closers for doors into the home
• Adequate combustion air
• Adequate venting on indoor combustion appliances (i.e. gas stoves)

The second line of defense is a CO detector.

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Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960