For Release April 17, 2005

Spring Yard Work

AGRI-VIEWS
by Chuck Otte, Geary County Extension Agent

As we move into the last half of spring, everyone's spring fever seems to kick into high gear. Daylight savings time gives us a lot more evening light to get out in the yard and garden to work. Based on some of the calls I've received in the last week or so, following is a list of things around the yard that you can or should be doing at this time of year.

Blooming broadleaf weeds in the yard can be sprayed at this time assuming you use great care to avoid harming tender new foliage on ornamental plants. But keep in mind that spraying now won't reduce the number of weeds next spring. You need to treat these weeds in late October or early November when they are small and easy to control. They'll soon be dying whether you spray them or not! Crabgrass is getting germinated now. If you didn't apply a crabgrass preventer you may still be in luck if you use a preventer that contains Dimension. Dimension will control seedling crabgrass if it is just a week or two old, but don't wait much longer!

Bushes that flower can be trimmed now IF the following conditions are met. If it is a summer flowering shrub, like Rose of Sharon or Butterfly Bush, go ahead and prune. These flower on new wood put on in the current year. Bushes that flower in the spring, such as forsythia, lilac, spirea or quince, need to be pruned right after they get through blooming. They will bloom next spring on the new growth these plants make this summer. Pruning this fall or next year before they bloom will remove the flower buds.

If you do not want your flowering crabapple trees to bear fruit you need to act immediately after they finish flowering. There are commercial fruit thinners available for this purpose. Additionally, some liquid Sevin (carbaryl) products are also labeled for removing small apples from trees. Wait until all the petals have just fallen off the tree as Sevin is very toxic to honeybees. Mix two tablespoons of liquid sevin per gallon of water and spray the tree with a good thorough soaking. In 7 to 10 days you should notice that the little stem that held the blossom and young fruit is turning yellow and wrinkling up. If the fruit have not started to fall off in two weeks make another treatment. This will only work for about a month after full bloom, so don't wait too long before trying this.

While our average last frost date over the past 50 years has been April 15th, that doesn't mean it's now safe to plant tomatoes! Our frost free date isn't for another 3 to 4 weeks and the ground is too cold for many of the warm loving plants. You can be planting leaf crops now as well as onions, melons (by seed), carrots and beets. Hold off on the sweet corn until the last few days of April and wait until early May for bean planting. Tomatoes, peppers, and squash need to wait until after Mother's Day. Sweet potatoes are the tenderest crop we have and we need to wait until the ground is nice and warm before planting them, sometime around the 20th of May.

Finally, make sure your mower blade is sharp and that your mower is raised as high as possible. Mowing short leads to problems in all grass species. Also make sure that you use a great deal of care and caution when using line trimmers, a.k.a. weed eaters. The cutting line that these devices use can cut right through the tender bark of many trees and shrubs. This damage can be quite severe, so be careful!

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