Down the Garden Path 2017

Welcome to another year of gardening! You would think January would be a time for gardeners and homeowners to sit back a bit, yet questions keep rolling in to Master Gardeners and Extension Educators. Let's check out a few of them: Q: With bitter cold weather, is there anything I...

Vegetable crops are mostly doing what they should be doing right now, given our sporadic plantings working around the weather. U of I Extension Master Gardeners have mainly been getting tree, shrub, evergreen and flower questions, and are not hearing about problems in the vegetable garden. Leafy...

The end of November can still mean there are projects outside that need to be done. Tree leaves have been slow to fall, so maybe use the mower and bagger attachment to go over the lawn one more time to clean up the last of the leaves. Ground up leaves can be used to cover the vegetable garden soil...

Horticulture Educator Rhonda Ferree recently wrote an article on our over-the-top spring rains and the waterlogged soils that resulted. Her comments apply statewide and I wanted to share some that article this week. "It's no secret that much of Illinois has received excessive spring rains, which...

That perennial question of "How soon can I plant my garden?" likely has been around since the first garden was planted. Part of the answer stems from knowing what kind of vegetables you are going to sow from seed or put in the garden as transplants. There are things you may need to know before you...

Now is the time to spend some time with your fruit trees before the season shuts us out. A few actions now can help prevent problems later. Rodent damage to the trunk at the soil line happens when grass grows tall next to the trunk. Remove the grass and weeds using hand clippers, not the string...

Boy, there has certainly been a lot of news coverage this past week or two about our higher than usual and even record-setting temperatures. Just about every arboretum and botanic garden, and even Extension, has been called on for interviews. No one's gardening crystal ball has been very clear,...

Birdseed and firewood are two common topics that come up this time of year. Both take some planning to be successful. Feeding the birds means starting earlier than later. Birds need to know early on that there will be something to eat on a regular basis if you want them to hang around in your yard...

Late last week, several weather-related organizations put out a release entitled "Major Cold and Wet Spring Event: Potential Impacts in the North Central U.S. April 26 –May 9, 2017." The story comes from the National Weather Service in partnership with NOAA, USDA Midwest Climate Hub, USDA...

Pesticides are used every day, but many people are not aware of their properties and that they may even be using them. A pesticide is any chemical (synthetic or natural) that is used to repel, control or kill a pest; this might be weeds, pathogens that cause plant diseases, insects or rodents. The...

Early September typically brings cooler temperatures and enough rain to green up our lawns and keep them green until cold weather shuts them off for the 2017 growing season. So far, we have had the right temperatures, yet the rains have remained very scattered and the amounts very limited. Long...

Collecting, storing and using rainwater is a great way to maintain beds and landscape during those times when Mother Nature is not giving us enough water. A rainfall of one inch per hour on a 1,000 square foot surface will yield 10 gallons of water per minute, so it is possible to fill that barrel...

There are some 8,000 ant species around, and on occasion, ants can become an annoyance in the home. Most often they are a bother in the spring of the year when soils outdoors begin to warm again. Right now, in this particular December, our soils next to the home are still warm. We may be bothered...

If plants could think, they probably are wondering, "What is going on? Why am I trying to grow in such difficult and changing weather conditions?" I am sure migratory birds and other wildlife are wondering the same thing. There are groups and organizations that monitor just about everything these...

We certainly have had some unique weather this summer, but we still have more than two months of growing weather. While the lawns – and our water bills – have benefited from the rains, so have the weeds. Annual grassy and broadleaved weeds have shown up in both thin and thick lawns this summer....

The impact of all our rains is clear while commuting to work, shopping and traveling through the county. Farm fields to backyard gardens will be drying for some time to come. Farmers will be waiting to return to the fields until the soils can be worked again without damage to soil structure and...

Although most Master Gardener help desks are on hiatus right now for the winter, questions still come into the office. It is interesting to see the seasonality of the questions this time of year, and this month, there is a thread among most of them – houseplants. Q: I love my...

At some point, every gardener has had leftover seeds after sowing the vegetable garden or flowerbed. In addition, saving vegetable and flower seeds is one way to save some money each year (or use that money to feed your gardening habit in other areas). Saving "store bought" seed is the easiest...

Our latest weather pattern is making outdoor fall clean up more difficult than usual. It always can seem overwhelming, but even more so this year thanks to several long rain events. For example, just keeping up (again) with the flush of the lawn has been hard, but add in finding a time when the...

I've got a weird looking weed that looks like grass but has a different light yellow seed head. How do I get rid of it?One grass-like weed that has shown up in the lawn, flower and garden beds lately is yellow nutsedge. Grass-like because it is actually a sedge. It is yellow-green...