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Planning a full-fledged garden doesn’t happen overnight. Everything from the best ways to prep the soil to planting where it goes careful consideration– and maybe no factor is more important than figuring out the timing.

Whether you are just starting out with gardening or an intermediate grower looking to improve, there are ways to plan your planting to ensure optimal growth. You can do a lot of research, soil testing, and sticking to the weather reports – but if you’re looking for a less intense approach, the gardening site Gilmour made Gil an online tool this will take a lot of the hassle out of you and help you plan a successful growing season before you buy your first seeds.

Why garden calendars are important

Plants can only truly thrive in the right conditions, and the plants that will do best in your garden will depend on the type of soil you have, your climate, and the weather in a particular growing season. The USDA has considered and considered all of these factors into this interactive mapthat helps you toPlanting zone.” The different Zones are based on the average temperatures in a given location and the days between the first and last frost. By determining the conditions in your planting zone, you can determine which plants naturally thrive in your area and which may need more help in the form of special soil preparation, additional fertilizer, or other special care.

Once you’ve figured out your zone, it’s time to figure out when to plant. This is where Gilmour’s tool comes in: they have compiled a database of information on various plants to help you create a personalized growth calendar – without getting lost in the weeds and researching everything you want to grow in your garden.

This is how a planting calendar works

Gilmour’s side asks you to enter your zip code first; I entered any postcode in Indiana and learned that it is in zone six, which ends on average, experienced its last frost on April 15th and its first frost on October 15th, giving you around 183 days of growth.

You will then be asked to select the type (s) of plants that you want to grow. The categories are divided into flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables. You can choose as many as you want, and you must choose at least one to generate the calendar.

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What a planting calendar can tell you

When you choose your plants, the site starts creating the planting calendar. Next to each plant you will see dates indicating when to sow (in this case, “sowing” means to start the growing process inside), to plant (or transplant), and to harvest during the appropriate season. In this particular region of Indiana, for example, growers can start planting blueberries from mid-March to mid-June. Depending on when they are planted, they can then be harvested from mid-June to mid-September. Herbs like rosemary should ideally start growing in January and be ready for harvest by March.

By planning what you will plant and when, you can ensure that your gardening experience is a fruitful one.

Photo: somsak nitimongkolchai (Shutterstock)

When the pandemic broke out last year, the first thing many parents did was give up on any rules they had regarding screen time. It’s not because the pandemic turned us into lazy parents; That’s because so many of us suddenly had to work in the same rooms where our children were studying, playing, and arguing with one another.

Their sports, club and extracurricular activities have all been canceled and we weren’t sure how the virus spread in the first place, let alone how to safely get our kids together with friends for socially distant outdoor play dates. For many of our children, tablets and smartphones became their lifeline for their friends – one of the few ways to connect with the outside world that the pandemic hadn’t taken away. We let them log in and before we knew it, the extra screen time became way too much screen time and bad habits were formed.

I have known for a while that my own 10 year old’s screen time was out of control, and I decided that the summer break, with its pleasant weather and camp facilities, was the ideal time to transition to a more restricted screen time lifestyle. But I wasn’t sure how to deal with it without making it appear as a punishment, so I reached out to child psychiatrist Dr. Helen Egger for advice on where to start and how to develop new, healthier screen time habits.

Forgive yourself first

Most of this introduction is trying to justify my own upbringing over the past 15 months. I believe every word of it, and yet we know excessive screen time is not good for our kids. But the first thing Egger, co-founder and chief physician of Little otter, a children’s mental health service, told me that parents need to forgive themselves.

“The first thing is to really take a break, and that is what all parents really should do,” says Egger. “This has been such a difficult time with so many losses … and I think we need to realize that this pandemic has been an emergency and a trauma for everyone.”

So, hey, we got through a pandemic and maybe our kids are on their screens too much now, but that’s one thing we can fix – and they’ll be fine.

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Dopamine makes you want more

What makes a child’s dependence on screens so widespread is the physiological response they experience while using them. Of course, over time, using devices becomes a habit – think about how you pick up your cell phone the second after the alarm goes off in the morning. But it’s more than that.

Video games and apps “are built to keep us on their platform,” says Egger. “They stimulate a part of our brain that makes dopamine, the reward system; they call dopamine the “feel-good neurotransmitter”. So it’s important to realize that it’s some kind of habit that can be difficult to break the cycle because not only does it offer something positive in a social way, but that screen time and games make your brain want more . “

That’s not bad in and of itself – but when it’s hard to control or interferes with other activities that you used to enjoy, like sports, independent play time, arts and crafts, or family time, it’s time to get a grip on them to get.

Assess actual screen time usage – and your own

You may feel like your child’s screen time has increased over the course of the pandemic, but if they’re old enough to access these devices without your help, you may not have a full picture of how and when they dive in to pay attention when to sign up, especially if it is sometimes more problematic than others.

While you’re at it, Egger says it’s a good idea to take stock of your own screen usage, which has probably increased over the past year. You’re free to talk about reducing screen time, but if you also check business email at the dinner table, you’re sending a contradicting message. Chances are, we can all find ways to reduce the amount of time our eyes glued to a screen in a day.

If you are not sure where to start, The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a media usage calculator that you can use to enter all the ways they (and each family member) spend the hours of a day, from sleeping and eating times to household chores, physical activities, family time, and, yes, screen time. You can fill this out with them to help them get an idea of ​​how disproportionate their screen usage might be compared to other activities.

Once you have a better grip on family screen usage, you can use this information to look for areas to work on developing new habits. They used to wake up and immediately turn on their iPad or grab their video game controller because they haven’t had to join their teacher’s Zoom call – but now they have a summer camp to look forward to in the morning and can be a natural time to get away from automatically jumping on the screen.

Create a family media plan

Now that you’ve forgiven yourself for all of your screen sins, realized the role of dopamine, and got a handle on the huge presence of these screens in your life, it is time for everyone to debate where to go from here. Assuming they’re old enough to understand, it might start with acknowledging how we got here in the first place.

Children old enough to access these devices are also old enough to understand that we just had a bloody year behind us and that life had to adjust for a while – but now we are in a situation in which things open up again and it is important to do the other physical and social activities that are important to them. You may have your own thoughts on what activities to prioritize this summer, and you can discuss how those things can be implemented.

To do this, you can work together to create a family media plan. The AAP has a tool for that, also, that we have written about in the past. This can help you decide together as a family how to define screen-free times and zones at home, how to balance online and offline times, and what media “manners” to commit to.

In other words, don’t just drop the hammer and decree that after 15 consecutive months with a lot more you will only be granted an hour of screen time per day. This is not a punishment; it is a rearrangement of priorities because we can finally rearrange them.

“It’s not about losing something, like losing time on the screen,” says Egger. “It’s really important to set the framework for what we can get back, what we love, and try to do that [talk about that] in a positive sense.”

Egger also points out that the entire screen time does not have to look as if each family member withdraws to their own corners; You can also use it to connect as a family, either by asking them to show you how to play a favorite game or by watching a TV show together that you all enjoy.

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Yesterday the IRS started a portal to operate them who normally do not have to file taxes, but are still entitled to the extended child tax credit Valued up to $ 3,600 per eligible family member. The tool aims to bridge the gap between low wage earners and the IRS who cannot provide the benefit without a social security number or current address. If this situation applies to you, here’s what you need to know.

What is the child allowance?

As part of President Biden’s US rescue plan, child tax credits increased from $ 2,000 to $ 3,600 per child for children under six and $ 3,000 per child for children ages 6-17 and $ 500 for older relatives increased.

Instead of being paid in a credit at tax time, half of that amount (equal to $ 300 / month for children under six years old or $ 250 / month for older children) will be split into monthly payments from July 15 through the end of the year. After that, the other half of the payment can be claimed as part of your 2021 tax return. These payments may vary based on your gross annual income, so not everyone gets the full amount (see more information on income limits) in this Lifehacker post).

Unfortunately, the IRS can only use the information from your 2019 or 2020 tax return to determine if you are eligible for the benefit, which means if you fail to file taxes, you will be missing out on the money. And because those who earn less than $ 12,000 a year don’t have to file a tax return, many of them don’t either – hence the special tool for non-filers.

How does the IRS non-filer tool work?

The reissued Registration tool for non-filers is for individuals who did not file a 2019 or 2020 tax return and who did not use the IRS non-filers tool last year to register for Economic Impact Payments. The tool provides a way for non-applicants to update the IRS on the information they need to pay the tax credit, including their social security number, current address, number of eligible children, and the ages of those children. You can also enter bank details for direct deposit so the IRS can send payments straight to your checking or savings account.

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The IRS says the tool also allows you to ask for the third payment of $ 1,400 for economic impact if you haven’t already used the previous version of the tool for this.

Other IRS tax tools are coming soon

The IRS also announced that two more portals related to child tax credit will be launched soon:

• The Child tax credit update portalwhich confirms eligibility and offers an opt-out option for monthly reviews (if you’d rather claim the full amount as part of your 2021 tax return). Since the payments are based on estimates of your total income in 2021, the tool can also be used to update your income and child status. This will bring the pre-checks in line with your total actual income for 2021 (this avoids having to repay part of the money on your tax return next spring).
• An interactive one Assistant for eligibility for child benefit, helps families determine if they are eligible for the tax credit.

In the meantime, keep an eye out this pageas it provides the most up-to-date information available about the tax credit and related prepayments.

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You don’t have to go far to find conflicting advice on what to do in the gym. Some people will tell you not to do certain exercises at all; others will discuss details such as how straight your elbows should be at the tip of a press. It can be frustrating to encounter diametrically opposed viewpoints just looking for expert advice, but there is often a reason for such wild disagreement – provided you look deep enough.

Before we get into the reasons why these differences exist, it’s worth noting that there are a number of things that apply across the fitness world. These are what you can count on, and if you get confused, come back to them:

Well, for some of the reasons it often gets confusing …

There are different fitness cultures with different approaches

Are you a bodybuilder? A power lifter? A weightlifter? A crossfitter? A runner? A cyclist? A kettlebell enthusiast? If you don’t have a straight answer to this question, you are in the best territory to be confused.

That’s because these groups do everything a little differently because of their different goals and different histories. For example, weightlifters often go as deep as they are comfortable in a squat because they are pushed into that position during competitive exercises; Powerlifters usually crouch until their thighs are just parallel to the floor because that’s how they are judged in competition and because they want to use their energy as efficiently as possible.

There’s a similar divide almost anywhere you see conflicting advice, or when followers of one training style look down on another. Military fitness tests require rigorous pull-ups; Crossfit competitions encourage quick pull-ups, where kipping or butterfly movements make the most sense. Each group does what works best for them.

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So, if all you want to do is “do a chin-up” or “a squat,” it’s no wonder you’re confused as to how to get it right. There are many correct answers! One way to deal with this is to choose a discipline that is your tiebreaker. If you think that one day you might want to compete in powerlifting – or even if you just think powerlifters are cooler (you’re wrong, but that’s a hypothesis) – then ask a powerlifter for advice if you’re confused, or not Do some research on what a respected powerlifting trainer thinks.

Another strategy is to simply take a zen-like approach and recognize that every answer is an answer, and none need to be the answer.

Some things are technically correct, but not useful

We’ve already established that the basics of fitness are simple. But people still love to talk about fitness, and they have to say something other than “Constancy is good” and “Hey kids, let’s all lift heavy.”

Therefore, a lot of attention is paid to the smallest details. Some studies found slightly lower strength gains in people who did more cardio, causing some strength athletes to refuse to do cardio. (Incidentally, this is not an appropriate response to this information; the effect “Cardio kills your gains” is more myth than fact.)

This is the same mindset that makes people wonder what supplements are best without first delving into their diet, or asking if this or that variation of curl is more effective instead of going to the gym and actually do some curls.

The bottom line is, you can and will encounter endless arguments about whether something is true or not, or whether X is better than Y when in reality it doesn’t matter. When in doubt, refer to the basics above.

People will spread any message they want to believe

Part of the confusion is the result of outright misinformation, such as: We found these old chestnuts repeatedly on TikTok. You can’t spot cut fat (for example, reducing belly fat with ab exercises) and you never could, but an alarming number of people like to say or imply that you can because that’s the kind of thing their audience likes to hear . That, and sometimes they want to believe it themselves.

Here at Lifehacker we try to destroy these myths whenever we can. But when you’re alone, it’s best to stick to the basics. If someone seems to offer an abbreviation that obviates the need for the basics, it is a guarantee that what they are saying is too good to be true.