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Over the Garden Fence

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The Worst Spring Lawn Weed

This spring has seemingly brought out the worst in some of our lawn weeds. Creeping Charlie, also called Ground Ivy has been the number one complaint I have had this spring while talking lawn care with homeowners and garden club members. Creeping Charlie quietly grew well into the fall of 2015...
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Home Orchards: Why Our Fruit Trees Fail to Bear

Extension offices routinely get phone calls after a fruit tree has been planted that second or third year in the home orchard or landscape about what is going on, "Why don't I get any fruit?". Often times what is happening is natural, sometimes we contribute to the delay of fruit production by the...
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Frost Cracks

Every season brings new surprises to homeowners. Spring is no exception to this. Finding out the 300 spring bulbs you planted last fall are actually white, not the yellow the plant label said they were. Less enjoyable surprises would be finding out the young trees you planted to replace the Ash...
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Let's Talk Lawns in April

Lawns are really greening up nicely over the last couple of weeks courtesy of Mother Nature. Lawns will naturally green up in the spring anyway, yet the rains and warmer temperatures really help too. Questions to the Extension offices and the Master Gardener Help Desks have been all about lawns and...
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Dormant Pruning and Sprays for Apple Fruit Trees

The weather is sure messing with our plans for early work in the yard. There are at least a couple of projects that not only can be done, but should be done as soon as possible and at the right stage of growth. Perhaps the more critical project is that of our earliest sprays in the home orchard....
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Preventing Vegetable Diseases in the Garden

Check lists can be useful to be sure projects and tasks get done in a timely fashion. Going down a check list for the garden to lessen disease is just another part of planning what you are going to grow this season. My check list covers 8 points. Not all will apply to every garden and some gardens...
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Planting the Home Orchard

Spring is a great time plant fruit trees in the home orchard. Planting now allows the fruit trees to establish a root system this summer. If fruit trees are or have been ordered from catalogs they are most likely going to be bare root with some form of moist packing around the roots to keep them...
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Degree Days and Chilling Hours

Wonder why sometimes the vegetables in the garden don't grow or produce as well as they should have? Besides the usual influences of our general weather conditions like too much or too little soil moisture, another factor is something called growing degree days. This is based on heat units...
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Early Warm Weather Out In the Yard

What a treat to have some early warming weather the last few days. Of course it is way too early to be doing much other than a little debris pick up out in the yard. This weather does allow us to see what has been happening outdoors though. It is pretty easy to see what the rabbits have been...
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Vegetable Gardening This Early?

Gardeners growing their own vegetable transplants always begin their gardening season much earlier than the rest of us, especially if putting in that early spring garden. The decision of when to start those seedlings to be turned into vegetable transplants has everything to do with our traditional...
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