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1500 questions
17
votes
4 answers
What is the proper way to winterize a lawnmower?
I've heard a lot of anecdotes and shortcuts, but I am still unclear at to how to properly winterize a power push lawnmower. What steps or maintenance tasks should I take in order to keep it in good condition the following year?
Josh
17
votes
1 answer
Why are my squash shrivelling?
I put squash seeds in with my compost at the end of last year, and apparently it didn't get heated up enough to kill everything. I now have Delicata plants with dinner-plate sized leaves growing out of it.
One of the plants has nice, healthy, 4…
baka
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17
votes
10 answers
How do I prevent raccoons from eating my corn?
This harvest I was not able to pick a single corn cob. Some large animal(s), I suspect raccoons, got to them before they were ripe (I would find peeled and gnawed corn littering the lawn and the corn stems bent down when I got home). I had crushed…
Om Patange
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17
votes
1 answer
What type of tester works best for measuring soil pH?
I want to measure the pH of soil in my potted plants (especially for the dwarf citrus trees that I just bought).
I've seen many different options: expensive laboratory-grade meters, cheap digital meters, analog meters, pH test paper strips, and so…
Steven T. Snyder
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17
votes
3 answers
How do you water tiny seedlings?
I just germinated some mini sinningia from seed and the seedlings are very small. When I water the soil, the soil mixture just floats on the water because some of them are perlite. The perlite and water crashes into the seedlings and I thought…
lamwaiman1988
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17
votes
1 answer
Why it is bad to add sand to soil?
Motivation: this comment from stormy:
And DO NOT ADD SAND to garden soil!!! ARRRGGHH. Again, when one takes clay soil, gravel, lime, gypsum, water and then ROTATE what does one get? Concrete. Sand is right in there. Does NOTHING for the soil. The…
Giacomo Catenazzi
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17
votes
5 answers
Why is there concrete buried across my entire backyard?
As I was planting a few fruit trees last weekend, I discovered an odd and very annoying phenomenon. About 6" down from ground level, I ran across a 2" layer of really crumbly concrete/gravel mixture. Beneath that was clay for as far as I dug. The…
Doresoom
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17
votes
1 answer
Why didn't my forsythia cuttings root?
In May, I took some greenwood forsythia cuttings, dipped them in a hormone rooting powder and planted them in rooting mix. The mix was kept moist all year. I had thought they had rooted because they began to grow rapidly and the new shoots hardened…
J. Musser
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17
votes
2 answers
What is a good method for extracting the earliest-viable seeds from young pumpkins?
I am in need of a good strategy to extract the earliest-possible batch of seeds from an upcoming batch of white pumpkins (I may have a few available within a month).
My main uncertainty is at what size a pumpkin needs to be before extracting seeds…
Brian Webster
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17
votes
2 answers
What is this shrub and has it come back from the dead?
We had this deciduous shrub in our lawn for many years. Its height was about 1.5m - 2m. This photo is from a couple of years ago.
Strange thing is that this spring it seemed to have died. We reckoned to return that area to lawn. I cut the dead…
Tea Drinker
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17
votes
3 answers
Which techniques and tools should I use to build a raised vegetable garden from bricks?
I have about 2/3 of a pallet of bricks left over from building our house (I didn't build it!), and I'd love to use them to build a raised vegetable garden. I have never laid bricks before, but am keen to learn! I'd like to do it properly so that…
Highly Irregular
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17
votes
3 answers
Why does my lime tree drop its fruit early?
I have a kumquat and a Mexican (or Key) lime tree in pots right next to each other. The kumquat has been flowing and fruiting like a champ nearly as long as I've owned it. The lime hasn't yet produced a mature fruit. It has flowered many times…
Jon Ericson
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17
votes
3 answers
How do I care for grapefruit seedlings?
I got two tiny grapefruit seedlings for free and I don't know how to care for them. They are in very small pots and all the care they are getting is watering. They are 2" tall. I don't live in the right zone for these, and I don't have any idea how…
J. Musser
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17
votes
1 answer
What is this monster thistle-like weed?
What is this monster weed? It grows back every year and I yank it, but I can't dig out the tap root because it's too close to the gas line.
It is in Norfolk, VA, USA in full sun.
I'm kind of curious about whether it will flower, and I decided to…
Diane
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17
votes
5 answers
Do's and Don't's for a backyard compost?
We have a backyard compost bin for our vegetable garden and a few flower beds. Forgive me for being a total noob on this, but can someone offer me couple of good resources on what's ok and not ok to put in it and some best practices? Currently we…
TheSmallestOne
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