For Homeowners

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Fruit

Cornell Guide to Growing Fruit at Home is a comprehensive, easy to understand resource that tells homeowners how to grow and harvest the freshest, highest quality fruit from their backyard.

Managing Your Lawn

The Cornell Turfgrass Program offers information on basic lawn care, how grass grows, grass varieties for your lawn, watering, fertilizing, impact of shade, pests, and disease. You can also visit our page on Lawn Care.

NYS Department of Environmental Conservation

The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation provides strategies to minimize damage from wildlife. The Department also has regulatory oversight regarding issuing hunting licenses and nuisance wildlife permits. Seneca County is part of the NYS DEC Region 8. Call Region 8 Headquarters in Avon at 585-226-5366 or in Bath at 607-776-2165.

Pest Management

Cornell Pesticide Management Education Program provides Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Guidelines for Homeowners. Guidelines include information on diagnosis and identification of plant disorders, pest management options for home and garden, managing pests outside of the home, annual, perennial, tree and shrub pest management, lawn care and weed management.

Master Gardeners Program

Cornell Cooperative Extension, Seneca County supports a Master Gardener program. Volunteers answer gardening questions, build demonstration gardens, conduct a plant swap and participate in other activities important to them. Read more.

To learn more about the NYS Master Gardener Volunteer Program supported by Cornell University, visit Cornell's Extension Master Gardener Volunteer Program page.

Vegetables

Cornell Cooperative Extension has extensive resources for commercial vegetable growers. Some of the information may be useful to homeowners. Visit Cornell online to access these resources.

Cornell Cooperative Extension has extensive resources for home vegetable gardeners that include growing guides, latest list of new vegetable varieties, and vegetable disease fact sheets. See Resources here.

Wildlife Damage

As there are fewer hunters, fewer natural predators, and more people moving into the countryside. There is more potential for interactions between people and animals. Management of Wildlife Problems provides some strategies on how homeowners can deal with birds, rodents, deer, and small animals.

Reducing Deer Damage to Home Gardens and Landscape Plantings provides information on how to minimize damage by deer to gardens and landscapes.

Last updated December 4, 2023