Agriculture

My friend Dee Dee keeps asking me about the best way to eradicate the creeping Charlie that has invaded her back yard. She is reluctant to use synthetic herbicides, or “poisons” as she puts. I can relate because I feel the same way.

However, controlling certain weeds otherwise takes some serious planning and commitment during the entire season.

My Christmas present this year was a great little seed-starting kit equipped with a tray, greenhouse top and heated mat. The heated mat is the special treat.

In the past the seed tray would sit in the not-so-convenient spot in front of the refrigerator, where the heat escapes at the bottom. I am very excited about this new source of heat; I have had entire trays of peppers fail because the soil wasn’t warm enough!

Remember Pepe la Pew, the cartoon skunk?

Pepe would follow the lovely black feline Penelope Pussycat, who, in some episodes painted a white stripe on her back to escape dog harassment and in others she accidentally scooted under a newly painted white fence. In any case Pepe was a persistent suitor.

The emerald ash borer was first identified in southeast Michigan in the summer of 2002. By 2009 it hit really close to home.

The first two confirmed Kentucky sightings where in Jessamine and Shelby counties. In Indiana the heaviest concentration of infestation is in the Northeast of the state; the rest of the state is considered intermittingly infested.