This zucchini somehow got lost in the garden and I let it get away from us a bit. I used this morning's Sun-Times as a comparison point so that you could understand just exactly how huge this thing is.
That's a look *up* from the ground through a young, skinny tree limb as well as a larger, more mature (and confirmed) Black Walnut tree. The leaves, from a distance look similar. Back last year, I mentioned that I wanted to try to identify if a couple of young trees were worth keeping or if I should remove them. And, knowing that I wanted to hold myself accountable, I included it as #15 on my to-do list for the yard this year . After poking around on the web in various places , I think I've settled on this clear cut detail that I found on r/WhatIsThisPlant on Reddit : Walnut tree leaves have no notches. Tree of Heaven (an invasive tree), do. From u/blacksheep998 : Ailanthus has a small notch at the base of it's leaflets. Black walnut leaflets, while slightly toothed, lacked that distinctive nub. So, that's first thing to check: Does the little tree leaves have those 'thumbs' or notches? *Looks closer*... Sure, enough....
The time has come for the backyard Fall lawn project. What I thought was going to be a total renovation - killing everything and seeding from scratch - has turned into a combination of patch seeding and total overseeding in a couple of ways. Once I was able to positively identify that I had an infestation of Nimblewill (a warm-season bent grass), I opted for a selective treatment called Tenacity. After a couple of applications, the spray began to work and has turned the tips of the Nimblewill white as it begins to kill it off . The killing and eradication of the Nimblewill isn't going to be done in this one season, but rather will be a multi-year program. But, with the application of Tenacity (while the Nimblewill is/was growing ), I think I've begun to defeat it. And allow for the application of a new batch of grass seed that will (I hope) take off and begin to grow in the final six or so weeks of the season. The backyard is a case study...
We were at the Menards in Bolingbrook and wandered out to where they keep the bags of lawn fertilizer. I was hoping to pick up a few bags of fertilizer and pre-emergent that I could put down late this Winter/early this Spring. As I've talked about over the years, I've evolved in my approach to feeding our lawn. When I started....I was all synthetic. I used the four-step program - all synthetics and some with weed/feed combined. Then...my eyes were opened (thanks to YouTube) on organics. Specifically Milorganite. I started to use biosolids. And, I stopped early Spring feedings. And, did a late season (Thanksgiving) feeding. And 'spoon fed' during the warm months and all of those things that people talk about online. Starting last year, I've kind of swung back on the synthetic --> organic spectrum. But, only half-way. I'll post about what I'm doing with the first application in another post....
Comments
Post a Comment
Be nice to each other here.