Why I Oughta...

Over the years, I've adopted a multi-step approach to feeding and treating the (now) five Disneyland Rose bushes on the southside of our house.  These have suffered from pests and diseases in some years.  Sawfly larvae and blackspot.  At least, that's what I'm pretty sure was attacking them.  At the same time, I've read that Floribunda roses are 'heavy eaters' - meaning they need fertilizer to grow and bloom. The first step in my approach to keeping the Disneyland Roses healthy is a monthly application of a 3-in-1 granular treatment.  It is a 'systemic' treatment, meaning that the benefits get picked-up, overtime, through the root system.  I posted about this one year ago (May 2025) , when I talked how I was trying to get ahead of the problems.   I sprinkle less-than-a-capful around the base of the crown of each one this past week.  You can see the white granules in the photo below: The product I've been using is this Bioadvanced "All-in-One...

Just a few days, I posted a ' musings' post on starting my dahlia tubers and talked about the  when/how/what/where of starting the flower farming season here in the garden.  Last year, I potted up the stored tubers right at the beginning of May and this year, I talked about trying to get it done a little bit earlier.  Today marks a few days shy of two weeks earlier.  That's pretty good, right?   The 10-day forecast shows ZERO days below freezing, but I'm not holding out hope that the last freezing temperature is behind us.  The State Climatologist Office for Illinois has a last/first frost table up on their site that I tend to use more than the Old Farmer's Almanac version.   On the Illinois version, they have a map up showing the "earliest" last Frost date (for us, it was April 9th ).  And the latest (May 28th).  The map showing the median lists April 28th for DuPage County .  And, that's just ten days away.   So,...

Yesterday, I posted a 'garden dreaming' post about building a new, raised bed section in our backyard to grow even more vegetables and flowers.   And, right before the new year, I posted by 2025 to-do list scorecard .  I bring both of those posts up because they are both involved in this post about lazy beds.   First, the scorecard .  I graded myself 18/25, but one of the seven incompletes was #23 - "More Lazy Bed Extensions" and I mentioned in the post that I have reserved the right to update my scorecard total if I get these bed extensions done before the end of January.   Time is important on these lazy bed extensions as we need time to suppress the turf that exists, 'melt away' the cardboard and allow the biosolids to mellow out a little bit.  I've done them in the Fall and the beds were ready come Spring.  And, I've done some on a quicker turnaround.   If I get these done in January, I'll have 120ish days of cure time....