Fred Lucas each year hopes for a relatively dry spring.

Rainy weather takes its toll on three of the upper soccer fields at Larry Mills Park.

Lucas, Plum Soccer Association president, said the rain water on the fields has no place to drain.

It's always a problem, he said.

Lucas is pleased that Plum Borough is proceeding with plans to fix the problem.

The borough is accepting bids for the work that is to include installation of a drainage system, re-grading the fields, spreading topsoil and seeding so the grass grows back.

Councilman Michael Dell said the money for the project is included in the 2014 borough budget.

Money was allocated for the soccer fields, Dell said.

The bids are scheduled to be opened on Aug. 4 and could be considered by council during the Aug. 11 voting meeting.

Plum's $11 million budget for 2014 includes about $180,000 for the total reconstruction of the upper soccer fields at the park, said borough public works building and grounds Supervisor Joe Fischetti.

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Reconstruction of Plums Larry Mills Park soccer fields to begin in September

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

By: Kevin Rollason

Posted: 07/30/2014 1:00 AM | Comments: | Last Modified: 7:05 AM | Updates

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Landscape expert Bob Somers crouches in tall grass around the human rights museum. The intent is to get 'as close to a tall grass prairie here as one can,' he says. s Photo Store

Inside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights there are still construction workers working away while outside it looks like weeds are taking over.

But spokespeople for the CMHR say they're not worried because everything is on schedule for the inside and what's outside is supposed to look that way -- for now.

With just under two months left until opening day on Sept. 20, Corey Timpson, the museum's director of exhibits and new media, said workers are no longer constructing the building, but are busy installing the wiring and other infrastructure to be able to run video machines and screens that will enhance the experience of visitors.

Timpson said most of the exhibits have already been constructed elsewhere and just have to be set up inside the museum.

"There's a 60,000-square-foot facility in Toronto and until three months ago it was still full of our stuff and we have 47,000 square feet of exhibit space," he said.

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Museum moving right(s) along

Its the middle of July. The heat index is over 100 degrees. I have cracks in my yard. My grass is dormant. My water bill is growing faster than my flowers. My air conditioned living room is looking pretty good. Stick a fork in me, Im done! Is anyone else feeling this way?

July is a tough time even for the most diligent gardener. If you werent an early riser before you may be now just to beat the heat. Then, I come along and encourage you to plant a new garden for fall. Yes, digging, planting, watering. Ugh! Has she lost her mind? No, and I have not had a heat stroke.

The end of July and the first part of August are great times to get a new crop started that will be harvested at, before, or just after frost. Some crops may even carry into winter up until Christmas. Believe it or not, a little frost can greatly enhance the flavor of many of your favorite vegetables. Vegetable quality for preserving can be better also.

Summer Crops Continue

With care, many of your current crops, like tomatoes, okra, peppers, New Zealand spinach, eggplant, and sweet potato will continue to produce into fall. Cucumbers, summer squash, and beans can be grown as fall crops. Peas dont adapt well to the cooler weather.

Fall Crops

Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts are listed as fall crops. Broccoli and cauliflower may take a little more effort to nurture in the heat. Potato seed pieces from fresh potatoes will rot easily in warm soils. Use the older potatoes in your pantry that are beginning to sprout. Cut pieces 3-4 days before planting and allow them to heal over at room temperature. This will help prevent decay.

Adequate moisture is necessary for beets and carrots to develop properly. Cover them with light compost to help retain moisture and prevent crusty soil.

Various types of lettuce can handle a light frost. The outer leaves may burn slightly, but the center leaves may survive quite nicely. Bibb or head lettuce are two that seem to withstand that first light frost.

Spinach and kale have been reported to overwinter with a light mulch. This gives them a head start in your garden in spring!

More here:
At Home Living: Jamie Hancock oultines steps to plant a fall garden

The nearly completed field behind Snyder-Girotti Elementary School will undergo two separate plant-and-mulch projects, one now and the other in September.

The Bristol school board voted during a special meeting Tuesday night to approve a $29,000 change order that will enable the projects to go forward.

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Bristol school board approves change orders

Is your grass looking brown this summer? If so, you may be able to make some changes so that it will be greener and healthier.

The foundation for a healthy, competitive lawn starts with an understanding of photosynthesis. You may have forgotten, but you probably at least heard this word in high school biology. It is the process by which plants take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sunlight and then produce carbohydrates and oxygen. Just as plant carbohydrates are a critical part of the human diet, plants also use these carbohydrates to maintain growth.

When turf grass is mowed too closely, we limit the ability of our turf to manufacture carbohydrates. A lack of plant food results in a weaker and diminishing root system. The above ground portion of a plant, such as turf grass, and the root system mirror each other. A shorter grass height will only support a shallow root system.

A higher cutting height will also encourage a denser stand by preventing weeds. Less sunlight that makes its way to the soil surface means less weed competition. While it may be a small difference, the soil surface temperature will be lower when a turf grass is mowed higher.

Fescue is by far the best turf grass for Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia as we live in an area where warm season grasses like bermudagrass often are killed by our colder winters. Fescue is a cool season grass and performs best at a mowing height of three inches. During the dryer and hotter part of the summer, a grass would survive better at a mowing height of 3 and to 4 inches.

Competitive summer weeds such as bermudagrass, crabgrass, goosegrass, and dallisgrass tolerate close mowing. When a lawn is mowed at two inches and below, these grassy weeds are more likely to become established as they take advantage of the open areas in the turf.

Many lawn management strategies such as fertilization, chemical weed control, dethatching, aeration, and over-seeding all cost you money. The goal for turf grass weed control should be to maintain a competitive, dense turf. The first step in this process doesnt cost anything. Just raise the deck.

Chris Ramsey is an agriculture extension agent in Sullivan County. His office is at 3258 Highway 126 in Blountville. You can reach him at 423-279-2723 or cwramsey@utk.edu.

Read more:
Easy way to keep lawn green during dry spells

Heartleaf pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata var. cordata) is put to good use along a ponds edge at the Norfolk Botanical Garden.

By Tom Glasgow / N.C. Cooperative Extension

Aquatic herbicides are available to control most any aquatic weed we might encounter in our ponds and streams. However, good cultural practices can greatly reduce the opportunity for these weeds to develop in the first place, and should be our first line of defense.

For starters, in her July/August Environmental Update, Diana Rashash of the Onslow County Extension office reminds us that planting grass all the way to a ponds edge is not recommended. Not only can mowing be difficult, many of the cut grass blades invariably make their way into the water, adding nutrients and supporting the development of aquatic weeds. In addition, mowed grass maintained down to the waters edge does nothing to reduce wave action, and this can result in increased slumping or undercutting along the waters edge.

Rashash suggests instead that we utilize well adapted aquatics such as pickerelweed, Joe-Pye weed, and various rushes and sedges. These plants will do a nice job stabilizing the soil, reducing wave action, providing shelter for juvenile fish, and utilizing any nutrients that do make it into the water. She does caution that some aquatics can be very invasive, and care should be taken in what you decide to plant. (Visit http://www.weedscience.ncsu.edu/aquaticweeds/ for information on what to plant, what to avoid, and lots more on aquatic weed and pond management. )

Rashashs comments are echoed in a May/June 2014 article found in North Carolina Turfgrass (a publication of the Turfgrass Council of North Carolina). Brad Harris, a forestry biologist and aquatic specialist with SOLitude Lake Management, writes Having an aquatic vegetative buffer around the perimeter of the pond can reduce erosion and sedimentation issues, as well as help the uptake of excess nutrients that would otherwise enter the water column, which can lead to potentially severe aquatic weed and algae issues.

If you have a private or community pond with some level of aquatic weed presence, and for aesthetic reasons neatly mowed grass surrounds the entire perimeter of the pond, this summer would be a great time to reevaluate your planting and maintenance practices.

Recently I checked with Craven County Master Gardener volunteer Sheila Weibert for an update on plans for the fall and winter vegetable garden that is maintained on the grounds of the Craven County Agricultural Building.

Weibert tells me that volunteers will starting seeding red beets, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, collards, spinach, rutabaga and turnips in late August. She expects to see collard, spinach and maybe kale plants in the garden centers by late August. Check with your favorite local garden centers for information on when they expect to start bringing in fall and winter vegetables.

Craven County Master Gardener Volunteers will lead an irrigation presentation at the Craven County Agricultural Building on Saturday, July 19, beginning at 10 a.m. Topics will include plant selection, water sources and drip irrigation. This event is free and open to the public, and no preregistration is needed. The following Monday at 5:30 p.m. well hold our usual third-Monday plant selection program, also free and with no preregistration needed.

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Tom Glasgow: A natural balance can reduce acquatic weeds

As part of its participation in the New Jersey Audubons Corporate Stewardship Council (CSC), Trump National Golf Club has completed its second phase of habitat restoration at its Bedminster, property with additional native grass seeding and riparian plantings to benefit migratory bird and pollinators.

In May and June 2014 an additional 320 native trees and shrubs were installed by Trump staff, US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and NJ Audubon as part of Trumps enrollment into the USFWS Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program through the CSC.

These plantings bring the total of native trees and shrubs installed through the program up to over 650 plants at the site. Native plants have certain characteristics that make them uniquely adapted to local conditions, said John Parke, Stewardship Director of New Jersey Audubon. They are not only atheistically beautiful and provide habitat, but they are a practical and ecologically valuable alternative for landscaping. With the incorporation of more native plants at the Trump property, Trump National is helping to showcase a growing and positive trend across the nation that using native plants in landscaping is not just for residential properties, but for commercial businesses as well. Basically, using native plants can get great looking landscapes that fit in naturally with the local area, while saving or improving natural resources.

Because they are so well adapted to regional fluctuation in temperature and rainfall typically native plants use less water, are more drought tolerant and resistant to disease and pests so they are used to taking care of themselves. So additional irrigation, pesticide use or fertilization needs are less likely needed or a concern at all.

As far as habitat value, native vegetation is one of the most important features of an animal's habitat because it often provides most, if not all of an animal's habitat needs (i.e. food, cover and raising young). The wildlife in-turn helps those plants to reproduce through the dispersal of the plants pollen or seeds. Therefore, plants and animals are interdependent and certain plants and animals are often found together because they have evolved together.

Though the installation of native plants at the Trump property, a variety of bird, amphibian and butterfly species have been documented to be actively utilizing the property as breeding grounds.

Our partnership with the USFWS and NJ Audubon has been a tremendous success on many levels.

They have consulted on transforming vast acres of our property with native plant species which has enhanced the beauty of the course and increased wildlife habitat. The process has been both fun and educational for staff and membership. said David Schutzenhofer General Manager, Trump National Golf Club.

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Habitat enhancements continue at Trump National Golf Course

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Q: My neighbor suggests that I paint the trunk of the new apricot tree I just planted. Really? A.R., North Valley

A: Fruit tree trunk painting is a time-honored process thatll keep your trees healthier. So, yes, I agree with your neighbor, and there are several reasons why this helps.

In these parts, during the winter months, we have those spectacular days when the sun shines bright and most anything with a southern exposure gets warmed by it. If the tree trunks get too warm, they sort of thaw and can move sap. Then, inevitably, well have a brutal cold snap soon after.

Its that thaw/freeze action that can cause internal damage in the blood vessels, if you will. With the warmth of the sun they expand, then rapidly contract with the cold. That action can cause wee fissures or cracks of the vessels causing the sap to pool internally. Eventually the pooling works its way out of the trunk. You notice the damage as a sticky, sometimes smelly, weeping up on the tree trunk during the growing season. Painting helps prevent sunburn on the trunks during the summer months, too, especially on younger, newly planted fruit trees.

Next, think of the paint as a pest preventer! Bunnies wont want to nibble on your tender young tree if its painted because it wont smell yummy. Then, too, the paint will help to keep your trees from being attacked by borers especially, if youve painted the whole trunk starting at just below ground level.

Scooch the soil away from the base of the tree and you should notice a gentle swelling or collar at its base. Start your painting just below that collar, remembering to push the soil back to the trunk once the paint is dry, and continue up the trunk to the first branches. You can use latex paint (be sure to use latex) for this process since itll allow the tree trunk to breathe, so to speak. Also, you can find tree paint at most nurseries and certainly online, too. I even found a couple of homemade tree paint recipes while poking about the Internet. So your neighbor really is correct. Paint your young fruit tree trunks; theyll be glad you did!

Q: There are a few bare spots in my lawn that I want to reseed. Can I do that now? N.F., Albuquerque

A: I think itll depend on the type of grass you plan on seeding with.

In the heat of the summer, seeding with a warm season grass such as Bermuda or tiff green you should be able to succeed. Rough up the spots and rake them smooth, being sure to remove any old thatch in the spots. If the spots are below grade fill them with a mixture of topsoil and finely milled compost, making sure to tamp it down. Just before seeding, very gently rough up the topmost layer of the spots so the seeds have a way to grab onto the soil. Spread your seed, and then retamp the spots so the seed gets held firmly in place.

See the article here:
Paint on trunk helps fruit trees

Brandon Sun - ONLINE EDITION

By: Jessica Botelho-Urbanski

Friday, Jun. 27, 2014 at 7:53 AM | Comments: 0

JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Enlarge Image

Evan Rasmussen, who farms west of Headingley, supplied grass seed to this year's World Cup.

World Cup soccer players getting their kicks in Brazil are doing it on grass from Manitoba seeds.

And even if you didn't make it to Brazil, you can grow a similar lawn. The Manitoba blend has some tough Kentucky bluegrass mixed in for our harsh climate.

Canadian company Pickseed was plucked as the official grass seed supplier for this year's World Cup. The company provided Manitoba-grown perennial rye grass seeds for each of the World Cup's 12 stadiums.

Pickseed also provided seeds for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the 2012 UEFA European Championship in Ukraine and Poland.

"We have a World Cup blend we sell that is designed for soccer pitches and other playgrounds, which germinates quicker than regular grass," said Terry Scott, the western Canadian vice-president of DLF Pickseed.

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World Cup using Manitoba grass

Will Roger Federer grab an eighth Wimbledon, after lifting the Halle grass court trophy for the seventh time this year?

Tennis grand slam players have had only two weeks to transition from clay at the French Open to the grass surface at the ongoing Wimbledon (till July 6). This gap will be increased to three weeks from next year to help players adjust better to the surface change.

Grass, once the mainstay of tennis courts everywhere but increasingly rare, is the fastest surface with the ball bouncing to knee-level. On hard courts, it could be between the knee and the shoulder, and on clay courts it is above the shoulder. This makes the play technique on grass different from that on other surfaces it is relatively more aggressive.

Slowdown on grass

Points in Wimbledon were scored quickly in the past. Champions Boris Becker and Pete Sampras, for instance, would win a point with four or five shots. Now long rallies are seen more often. TV channels flash the number of shots when a rally is long. The slowing of the games with longer rallies is meant to promote the entertainment value of the sport. Eminent commentators, once leading players themselves, have said the grass is different from how it was in the past and the balls are heavier, contributing to the slower pace. Many are calling it the homogenisation of surfaces faster courts becoming slower.

In tennis history, only six players have made a successful transition from clay to grass, winning the French Open and Wimbledon back-to-back Rene Lacoste (1925), Fred Perry (1935), Budge Patty (1950), Bjorn Borg (1978, 1979 and 1980), Rafael Nadal (2008 and 2010) and Roger Federer (2009). It is called the Channel Slam.

Warm-up to Wimbledon

In the fortnight between the two Slams, there are four grass court warm-up tournaments for men, of which the ones at Queens Club, London, and Halle in Germany are especially patronised by leading players. But the probability of these finalists winning the Wimbledon is not high as happens in the Rome Masters vis--vis the French Open. All the top players participate in the Rome Masters, played on clay.

In the warm-up to Wimbledon, however, the high-ranked players are divided between London and Halle. Since 2000 only Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Murray have won back-to-back at Queens Club (called Aegon Championship) and Wimbledon. This year, Grigor Dimitrov was the champion in London, while it was Roger Federer in Germany. Dimitrov became a sensation after beating Alexandr Dolgopolov, Stanislas Wawrinka and Feliciano Lpez Daz-Guerra.

According to the draw, and going by the seeding, the quarter-final line-up in Wimbledon is likely to be: Novak Djokovic-Tom Berdych, Murray-David Ferrer, Wawrinka-Federer, and Milos Raonic-Nadal. Till a few years ago, Djokovic, Murray, Federer and Nadal constituted the quartet in Grand Slam semifinals. That quartets grip has loosened in more recent times.

Excerpt from:
A long shot on grass