Weekly Gardening Tips
April 26, 2008

• Start seeds of warm season fruits and vegetables like watermelons and cantaloupes and all varieties of squash, pumpkins and cucumbers. They will be ready to transplant into the garden in about four to six weeks.
   
• 2,4-D is the active ingredient in most herbicides and weed and feed fertilizers for killing dandelions and other broadleaf weeds in lawns. Don't apply when it's windy or the chemical may drift and possibly injure or kill other plants. Grapes, both vines and fruit, are especially susceptible to damage from 2,4-D.
   
• A few basic tools will make gardening a lot easier. You will need a round point shovel with a long handle for heavy digging and lifting and a garden trowel for planting. Two rakes - a garden rake for smoothing out the soil before planting and a leaf rake for the fall; a hand weeder or a scuffle hoe; and hand pruners will give you a good start for a successful garden.
   
• A flower garden grown from seed will provide you with fresh cut flowers all summer long. Zinnias, sweet peas, snapdragons, nasturtiums, cosmos and sunflowers are just a few of the easy-to-grow annuals you can use for informal, fresh bouquets.
   
• If you've tired of Karl Foerster grass try some of the other varieties of ornamental grasses like Switch grass (Panicum virgatum), Korean feather grass (Calamagrmostis brachytricha) or Giant Sacaton (Sporobolus wrightii).

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