Ramsey County

Howdy!!!

I am one day late writing this note as yesterday was one bad day.  My daughter in law lost her father and I lost a very good friend.  It was a very difficult day for the family and for Stehpanie as Jason could not be reached until later in the morning.  Connections were made for all and our heartfelt sympathy goes to the family and to my son’s family for their loss.  This is a reminder to all of us to enjoy the days we have as we never know what is in store for us.

I saw the weather this morning and reminds me of summer more than it does spring.  Temperatures in the high 70’s this weekend, should be planting tomatoes not thinking about it, but remember it is only April and I have seen stranger things happen.  One spring I thought things were clipping along very nicely and had about 200 calves on the ground, on May 25^th, a storm dumped 14 inches of snow on the ground.  Of course the weather warmed nicely after that so the snow did not stick around very long but thing like tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, watermelons and a lot of annuals we need to be careful and wait a while or be prepared to cover as we are only April 24, 2007.  Temptation is great, however.  As we prepare to plant our garden we can add a little mulch our soil to add a little tilth to the soil to add soil fertility and water mobility to the soil.  There are many ways of doing this; adding grass clippings through out the mowing season, adding clean up from your lawn from spring clean up, adding store mulch, adding compost from compost piles or adding compost from manure compost piles.  What ever you use we do need to take precautions on some types of compost.  If we use grass clippings we need to remember to use precaution if we have used a herbicide on our lawn, as some garden vegetables do not like herbicides and will not grow if any carry over herbicides are present.  Cow manure compost is very good compost but we also need to use caution as well as we can use too much and cause a growing spurt in our garden.  This would cause our vegetables to grow a lot and not put a lot of fruit on the plant.  Just remember to use common sense and we will be just fine.   

524 4th Ave NE #5, 2nd Floor Ramsey County Courthouse
Devils Lake  ND  58301
701-662-7027
email - ramsey@ndsuext.nodak.edu

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