I vote to get rid of all those flu bugs and replace them with a good case of Spring Fever. With a few more mild days like we’ve had, that is just liable to happen, and I’m already itching to get outside.
If your yard is like mine, there is a lot of prep work that needs to be done before the mower takes the field, and most of this can be done now while the ground may still be a little soft.
Trees and shrubs can shed a lot of debris during the fall and winter months, and now is the time to walk over the yard and haul this stuff away. Sticks, limbs and rocks sometimes seem to appear out of nowhere, and they can do a lot of damage to mower decks and especially blades.
Take a gander up into the trees and look for rotted or broken branches. If you can, you might as well eliminate these hazards now, before they fall. Trim low-hanging or protruding limbs so they won’t be a nuisance when you do get the riding mower out.
Look for fire ant hills and treat them. Give it a couple of days and level them out with a shovel. This spring, I plan to broadcast ant killer over my yard and treat existing mounds to kill them out. If you do this, you should save a lot of time battling these onery critters this summer.
Next week, let’s get ready to start those engines. Remember, help is just around the corner at your local hardware store.
