The oldest tree in the world

The current record-holders for individual, non-clonal trees are the Great Basin bristlecone pine trees from California and Nevada , in the United States . Through tree-ring cross-referencing, they have been shown to be more than five millennia old.

A clonal colony can survive for much longer than an individual tree. A colony of 47,000 quaking aspen trees (nicknamed "Pando "), covering 106 acres (43 ha) in the Fishlake National Forest of Utah, is considered one of the oldest and largest organisms in the world. The colony has been estimated to be 80,000 years old, although tree ring samples date individual, above-ground, trees at only an average of about 130 years.
 
A colony of Huon pine trees covering 2.5 acres (1.0 ha) on Mount Read , Tasmania is estimated to be around 10,000 years old, as determined be DNA samples taken from pollen collected from the sediment of a nearby lake. Individual trees in this group date to no more than 4,000 years old, as determined by tree ring samples.

False Ashoka tree

           False ashoka

A popular tree known as "false ashoka tree" or even as "ashoka tree", Polyalthia longifolia, is cultivated to resemble the growth pattern of erect pillar-like Mediterranean cypress trees. It is a popular park and garden plant, much used in landscaping on the Indian subcontinent. This tree can easily be distinguished by its compound leaves and very different flowers. Ashoka flowers are red (initially orange in color) while False Ashoka flowers are apple green in color. Ashoka fruits look like broad beans containing multiple seeds while false ashoka fruits are small, spherical and contain only one seed. Ashoka trees are small in height, while false ashoka is taller.

Hibiscus

The leaves are alternate, ovate to lanceolate, often with a toothed or lobed margin. The flowers are large, conspicuous, trumpet-shaped, with five or more petals , color from white to pink, red, orange, peach, yellow or purple, [6] and from 4–18 cm broad. Flower color in certain species, such as H. mutabilis and H. tiliaceus , changes with age.[7] The fruit is a dry five-lobed capsule, containing several seeds in each lobe, which are released when the capsule dehisces (splits open) at maturity. It is of red and white colours. It is an example of complete flowers.

Landscaping

Many species are grown for their showy flowers or used as landscape shrubs , and are used to attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.
Hibiscus is a very hardy, versatile plant and in tropical conditions it can enhance the beauty of any garden. Being versatile it adapts itself easily to balcony gardens in crammed urban spaces and can be easily grown in pots as a creeper or even in hanging pots. It is a perennial and flowers through the year. As it comes in a variety of colors, its a plant which can add vibrancy to any garden.
The only infestation that gardeners need to be vigilant about is mealybug. Mealybug infestations are easy to spot as its clearly visible as a distinct white cottony infestation on buds, leaves or even stems. To protect the plant you need to trim away the infected part, spray with water and then spray with a good insecticide recommended by a plant nursery.

Carambola (star fruit)

Carambola fruit, is about 5 to 15 centimetres (2 to 6 inches) in length and is an oval shape. It usually has five prominent longitudinal ridges, but in rare instances it can have as few as four or as many as eight. In cross section, it resembles a star. The skin is thin, smooth, and waxy and turns a light to dark yellow when ripe. The flesh is translucent and light yellow to yellow in color. Each fruit can have 10 to 12 flat light brown seeds about 6 to 13 mm (0.25 to 0.5 in) in width and enclosed in gelatinous aril . Once removed from the fruit, they lose viability within a few days.

Like the closely related bilimbi , there are two main types of carambola: the small sour (or tart) type and the larger sweet type. The sour varieties have a higher oxalic acid content than the sweet type. A number of cultivars have been developed in recent years. The most common cultivars grown commercially include the sweet types "Arkin" (Florida ), "Dah Pon" (Taiwan ), "Ma fueng" (Thailand), "Maha" (Malaysia), and "Demak" (Indonesia ) and the sour types "Golden Star", "Newcomb", "Star King", and "Thayer" (all from Florida). Some of the sour varieties like "Golden Star" can become sweet if allowed to ripen.

Maize

The maize plant is often 3 m (10 ft) in height,  though some natural strains can grow 12 m (39 ft).  The stem is commonly composed of 20 internodes [23] of 18 cm (7.1 in) length.  A leaf, which grows from each node, is generally 9 cm (4 in) in width and 120 cm (4 ft) in length.
Ears develop above a few of the leaves in the midsection of the plant, between the stem and leaf sheath, elongating by ~3 mm/day, to a length of 18 cm (7 in)  with 60 cm (24 in) being the maximum alleged in the subspecies.

They are female inflorescences , tightly enveloped by several layers of ear leaves commonly called husks. Certain varieties of maize have been bred to produce many additional developed ears. These are the source of the " baby corn " used as a vegetable in Asian cuisine .

The apex of the stem ends in the tassel, an
inflorescence of male flowers. When the tassel is mature and conditions are suitably warm and dry, anthers on the tassel dehisce and release pollen. Maize pollen is anemophilous (dispersed by wind), and because of its large settling velocity, most pollen falls within a few meters of the tassel.

Elongated stigmas, called silks , emerge from the whorl of husk leaves at the end of the ear. They are often pale yellow and 18 cm (7 in) in length, like tufts of hair in appearance. At the end of each is a carpel, which may develop into a "kernel" if fertilized by a pollen grain. The pericarp of the fruit is fused with the seed coat referred to as " caryopsis ", typical of the grasses , and the entire kernel is often referred to as the " seed ". The cob is close to a multiple fruit in structure, except that the individual fruits (the kernels) never fuse into a single mass. The grains are about the size of
peas , and adhere in regular rows around a white, pithy substance, which forms the ear- maximum size of kernel in subspecies is reputedly 2.5 cm (1 in).
An ear commonly holds 600 kernels. They are of various colors: blackish, bluish-gray ,purple , green, red, white and yellow. When ground into flour, maize yields more flour with much less bran than wheat does. It lacks the protein gluten of wheat and, therefore, makes baked goods with poor rising capability.

A genetic variant that accumulates more sugar and less starch in the ear is consumed as a vegetable and is called sweet corn . Young ears can be consumed raw, with the cob and silk, but as the plant matures (usually during the summer months), the cob becomes tougher and the silk dries to inedibility. By the end of the growing season, the kernels dry out and become difficult to chew without cooking them tender first in boiling water.

Carrort (daucus carota) description

Daucus carota is a biennial plant that grows a
rosette of leaves in the spring and summer, while building up the stout taproot that stores large amounts of sugars for the plant to flower in the second year

Soon after germination, carrot seedlings show a distinct demarcation between the taproot and the stem. The latter is thicker and lacks lateral roots. At the upper end of the stem is the seed leaf. The first true leaf appears about 10–15 days after germination. Subsequent leaves, produced from the stem nodes, are alternating (with a single leaf attached to a node, and the leaves growing in alternate directions) and compound , and
arranged in a spiral. The leaf blades are pinnate . As the plant grows, the bases of the seed leaves are pushed apart. The stem, located just above the ground, is compressed and the internodes are not distinct. When the seed stalk elongates, the tip of the stem narrows and becomes pointed, extends upward, and becomes a highly branched
inflorescence . The stems grow to 60–200 cm (20–80 in) tall.

Most of the taproot consists of a pulpy outer cortex (phloem ) and an inner core (xylem). High-quality carrots have a large proportion of cortex compared to core. Although a completely xylem-free carrot is not possible, some cultivars have small and deeply pigmented cores; the taproot can appear to lack a core when the colour of the cortex and core are similar in intensity. Taproots typically have a long conical shape, although cylindrical and round cultivars are available. The root diameter can range from 1 cm (0.4 in) to as much as 10 cm (4 in) at the widest part. The root length ranges from 5 to 50 cm (2.0 to 19.7 in), although most are between 10 and 25 cm (4 and 10 in).

Flower development begins when the flat
meristem changes from producing leaves to an uplifted, conical meristem capable of producing stem elongation and an cluster of flowers . The cluster is a compound umbel , and each umbel contains several smaller umbels (umbellets). The first (primary) umbel occurs at the end of the main floral stem; smaller secondary umbels grow from the main branch, and these further branch into third, fourth, and even later-flowering umbels. A large, primary umbel can contain up to 50 umbellets, each of which may have as many as 50 flowers; subsequent umbels have fewer flowers. Flowers are small and white, sometimes with a light green or yellow tint. They consist of five petals, five stamens , and an entire calyx. The stamens usually split and the stamens fall off before the stigma becomes receptive to receive pollen. The stamens of the brown, male, sterile flowers degenerate and shrivel before the flower fully opens. In the other type of male sterile flower, the stamens are replaced by petals, and these petals do not fall off. A nectar-containing disc is present on the upper surface of the
carpels.

Flowers consist of five petals, five stamens, and an entire calyx. Flowers change sex in their development, so the stamens release their pollen before the stigma of the same flower is receptive. The arrangement is centripetal, meaning the oldest flowers are near the edge and the youngest flowers are in the center. Flowers usually first open at the outer edge of the primary umbel, followed about a week later on the secondary umbels, and then in subsequent weeks in higher-order umbels. The usual flowering period of individual umbels is 7 to 10 days, so a plant can be in the process of flowering for 30–50 days. The distinctive umbels and floral nectaries attract pollinating insects. After fertilization and as seeds develop, the outer umbellets of an umbel bend inward causing the umbel shape to change from slightly convex or fairly flat to concave, and when cupped it resembles a bird's nest.The fruit that develops is a schizocarp consisting of two mericarps ; each mericarp is a true seed . The paired mericarps are easily separated when they are dry. Premature separation (shattering) before harvest is undesirable because it can result in seed loss.

Mature seeds are flattened on the commissural side that faced the septum of the ovary. The flattened side has five longitudinal ribs. The bristly hairs that protrude from some ribs are usually removed by abrasion during
milling and cleaning. Seeds also contain oil ducts and canals. Seeds vary somewhat in size, ranging from less than 500 to more than 1000 seeds per gram. The carrot is a diploid species, and has nine relatively short, uniform-length chromosomes (2 n=9). The genome size is estimated to be 473 mega base pairs, which is four times larger than Arabidopsis thaliana , one-fifth the size of the maize genome, and about the same size as the rice genome.

Coca tea componet of cocaine

Coca tea , also called mate de coca, is an herbal tea (infusion ) made using the (typically raw) leaves of the coca plant, which is native to South America. It is made either by submerging the coca leaf or dipping a tea bag in hot water. The tea is most commonly consumed in the Andes mountain range, particularly in Peru . It is greenish yellow in color and has a mild bitter flavor similar to green tea with a more organic sweetness.
Though also known as mate , mate de coca has very little in common with the yerba mate drink in Southeastern South America.

Alkaloid content and stimulant properties

The leaves of the coca plant contain alkaloids which—when extracted chemically—are the source for cocaine base. However, the amount of coca alkaloid in the raw leaves is small. A cup of coca tea prepared from one gram of coca leaves (the typical contents of a tea bag) contains approximately 4.2 mg of organic coca alkaloid.  (In comparison, a line of cocaine contains between 20 and 30 milligrams. ) Owing to the presence of these alkaloids, coca tea is a mild stimulant; its consumption may be compared to consumption of coffee or tea.  The coca alkaloid content of coca tea is such that the consumption of one cup of coca tea can cause a positive result on a drug test for cocaine, however.

Similar to decaffeination in coffee, coca tea can be decocainized. Just as decaffeinated coffee retains a minute quantity of caffeine, decocainized coca tea will still contain a minute quantity of organic coca alkaloids.

Cocoa pod

Cocoa pod

A cocoa pod (fruit) has a rough, leathery rind about 2 to 3 cm (0.79 to 1.18 in) thick (this varies with the origin and variety of pod) filled with sweet, mucilaginous pulp (called baba de cacao in South America) with a lemonade-like taste enclosing 30 to 50 large seeds that are fairly soft and a pale lavender to dark brownish purple color. Due to heat buildup in the fermentation process, cacao beans lose most of the purplish hue and become mostly brown in color, with an adhered skin which includes the dried remains of the fruity pulp. This skin is released easily after roasting by winnowing . White seeds are found in some rare varieties, usually mixed with purples, and are considered of higher value.  Historically, white cacao was cultivated by the Rama people of Nicaragua .

Varieties

Three main varieties of cocoa: Criollo, Trinitario and Forastero

The three main varieties of cocoa plant are Forastero, Criollo, and Trinitario. The first is the most widely used, comprising 95% of the world production of cocoa. Cocoa beans of the Criollo variety are rarer and considered a delicacy.  Criollo plantations have lower yields than those of Forastero, and also tend to be less resistant to several diseases that attack the cocoa plant, hence very few countries still produce it. One of the largest producers of Criollo beans is Venezuela (Chuao and Porcelana). Trinitario (from
Trinidad ) is a hybrid between Criollo and Forastero varieties. It is considered to be of much higher quality than Forastero, but has higher yields and is more resistant to disease than Criollo.

Harvesting

Cocoa trees grow in hot, rainy tropical areas within 20° of latitude from the Equator .[18] Cocoa harvest is not restricted to one period per year and a harvest typically occurs over several months. In fact, in many countries, cocoa can be harvested at any time of the year.  Pesticides are often applied to the trees to combat capsid bugs and fungicides to fight black pod disease .

Immature cocoa pods have a variety of colours, but most often are green, red, or purple, and as they mature, their colour tends towards yellow or orange, particularly in the creases.Unlike most fruiting trees, the cacoa pod grows directly from the trunk or large branch of a tree rather than from the end of a branch, similar to jackfruit . This makes harvesting by hand easier as most of the pods will not be up in the higher branches. The pods on a tree do not ripen together; harvesting needs to be done periodically through the year. Harvesting occurs between three and four times weekly during the harvest season.
The ripe and near-ripe pods, as judged by their colour, are harvested from the trunk and branches of the cocoa tree with a curved knife on a long pole. Care must be used when cutting the stem of the pod to avoid damaging the junction of the stem with the tree, as this is where future flowers and pods will emerge. One person can harvest an estimated 650 pods per day.

Grasses

Grasses may be annual or perennial herbs.,
:10 generally with the following characteristics (the image gallery can be used for reference): The stems of grasses, called culms are usually cylindrical (more rarely flattened, but not 3-angled) and are hollow, plugged at the nodes , where the leaves are attached.  Grass leaves are nearly always alternate and distichous (in one plane), and have parallel veins.

Each leaf is differentiated into a lower sheath hugging the stem and a blade with entire (i.e., smooth) margins. The leaf blades of many grasses are hardened with silica phytoliths , which discourage grazing animals; some, such as sword grass , are sharp enough to cut human skin. A membranous appendage or fringe of hairs called the ligule lies at the junction between sheath and blade, preventing water or insects from penetrating into the sheath.

Flowers of Poaceae are characteristically arranged in spikelets, each having one or more florets. The spikelets are further grouped into panicles or spikes . The part of the spikelet that bears the florets is called the rachilla. A spikelet consists of two (or sometimes fewer)
bracts at the base, called glumes, followed by one or more florets.  A floret consists of the flower surrounded by two bracts, one external—the lemma —and one internal—the palea. The flowers are usually hermaphroditic —maize being an important exception—and anemophilous or wind-pollinated. The perianth is reduced to two scales, called lodicules,  that expand and contract to spread the lemma and palea; these are generally interpreted to be modified sepals. This complex structure can be seen in the image on the right, portraying a wheat (Triticum aestivum ) spikelet. The fruit of grasses is a caryopsis , in which the seed coat is fused to the fruit wall. A tiller is a leafy shoot other than the first shoot produced from the seed.

Growth and development

Grass blades grow at the base of the blade and not from elongated stem tips. This low growth point evolved in response to grazing animals and allows grasses to be grazed or mown regularly without severe damage to the plant.
Three general classifications of growth habit present in grasses: bunch-type (also called caespitose), stoloniferous , and rhizomatous .[ citation needed ] The success of the grasses lies in part in their morphology and growth processes and in part in their physiological diversity. Most of the grasses divide into two physiological groups, using the C3 and
C4 photosynthetic pathways for carbon fixation. The C4 grasses have a photosynthetic pathway, linked to specialized Kranz leaf anatomy, which allows for increased water use efficiency , rendering them better adapted to hot, arid environments and those lacking in carbon dioxide .
The C3 grasses are referred to as "cool-season" grasses, while the C4 plants are considered "warm-season" grasses.

Annual cool-season - wheat , rye, annual bluegrass (annual meadowgrass, Poa annua), and oat

Perennial cool-season - orchardgrass (cocksfoot, Dactylis glomerata), fescue (Festuca spp.), Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne)

Annual warm-season - maize , sudangrass, and
pearl millet

Perennial warm-season - big bluestem,
Indiangrass , Bermudagrass and switchgrass

Pruning tips

Here are a few tree pruning techniques to keep in mind:

Before making a cut, look for the branch collar , which grows from the stem tissue at the bottom base of the branch. Look for the branch ridge, which is on the upper surface and is parallel to the branch angle at the stem.

Always cut outside the branch bark ridge and angle your cut down and away from the stem . Take care not to injure the branch collar.
Use the same technique to prune dead branches and living branches.

If a stem is too long, use the three-cut technique : Make a notch on the side of the stem that faces away from the branch that’s being retained; make the second cut inside the crotch of the branch and above the branch ridge; the third cut will remove the stub by cutting through the stem parallel to the branch bark ridge.

General tree trimming tips

General Tree Trimming Tips

It’s almost always best to trim or prune a tree during its dormant season. Although you can technically prune a pine tree at any time, it is still better to do so when it is dormant. The only exception is when a hazard exists.

Be conscientious about the size of the branch that you are going to remove. If it is less than five centimeters in diameter, removing it is fine. If it is between five and 10 centimeters in diameter, you might not want to do it. If it is more than 10 centimeters in diameter, you should only do so if you have a really good reason.

Only trim branches that have weak, V-shaped, narrow angles. Retain branches that have strong, U-shaped angles.

>Lateral branches should be between one-half and three-quarters the diameter of the stem at point of attachment. Otherwise, they should be removed.

When pruning is complete, the ratio of living crown to tree height should be two-thirds .
Try to prune away branches when they are young . They are much easier to manage at that point, and the risk of leaving nasty scars is much lower.

Don’t trim a branch too close or too long. You shouldn’t leave a large stub or remove the branch collar.

Planting sugarcane in Brazil

The Brazilian sugarcane industry employs modern agronomic management practices to enhance productivity and protect the environment. Key features of Brazil’s sustainable approach to cultivation and processing include:

Low Soil Erosion 

Brazilian sugarcane fields have relatively low levels of soil loss, due in part to the semi-perennial nature of sugarcane. The same plant will grow back many times after it is cut and its cane juice is extracted. In fact, sugarcane is typically only replanted every six or seven years.

The Brazilian industry also emphasizes farming techniques that preserve soil stability while yielding approximately 85 tons of sugarcane per hectare. Strategies include:

• No-till production systems
• Crop rotation with soybeans or peanuts
• Green fertilization by planting cover crops such as Crotalaria juncea or using leftover sugarcane straw after mechanized harvesting as ground cover  

Thanks to these responsible agricultural practices, soil erosion in sugarcane fields is minimal when compared to many other crops such as rice and soybeans (For more read the “Environmental sustainability of sugarcane ethanol in Brazil” study). In some regions of the country, sugarcane has been produced on the same soil for more than 200 years with continuous yield and soil carbon increases.

Minimum Water Use

Thanks to abundant and reliable rainfall, sugarcane is usually not irrigated in South-Central Brazil, where most of the country’s crop is grown. Water accounts for more than two-thirds of sugarcane’s weight, so a significant amount of water actually comes to the mill inside the cane itself.

Brazilian mills emphasize efficiency and have reduced the water used during industrial processing by more than 70% (to 1.4 m³ per ton) during the past two decades. New technologies will soon allow for a more efficient use of the water contained in the cane, and water withdrawal could be reduced to 0.5 m3/ton. Today, nearly 95% of the water consumed by a typical mill is later treated and re-used in the industrial process, with the objective to eliminate water discharge.

The workplace can create many hazards for your hands.

 whether from chemicals, cuts or burns. No single glove can provide appropriate protection for every work situation, so it is important to assess the risk for each task and select a glove that provides specialized protection.

The following is a list of gloves and their appropriate application, according to the National Safety Council:

• Cotton and fabric gloves: These can keep hands clean and protect against abrasions, but may not be strong enough to handle work with rough or sharp materials.
• Coated fabric gloves: This type of glove can provide protection against some moderate concentrated chemicals. They can be used in laboratory work provided they are strong enough to protect against the specific chemical being handled.
• Rubber, plastic or synthetic gloves: These types of glove can be used when cleaning or working with oils, solvents and other chemicals.
• Leather gloves: These should be used when welding, as the leather can resist sparks and moderate heat. The risk of cuts and abrasions also can be minimized by wearing leather gloves.
• Aluminized gloves: These gloves are recommended for welding, furnace and foundry work, as they provide reflective and insulating protection.
• Kevlar gloves: These have a wide variety of industrial applications. They are cut- and abrasion-resistant and provide protection against both heat and cold.
• Chemical/liquid-resistant gloves: Several types of gloves help protect against specific chemicals:
• Butyl rubber gloves: nitric acid, sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid and peroxide
• Natural latex/rubber gloves: water solutions or acids, alkalis, salts, and ketones
• Neoprene gloves: hydraulic fluids, gasoline, alcohols and organic acids
• Nitrile rubber gloves: chlorinated solvents

Extract from Wikipedia. ........

A wheelbarrow is a small hand-propelled vehicle, usually with just one wheel, designed to be pushed and guided by a single person using two handles at the rear, or by a sail to push the ancient wheelbarrow by wind. The term "wheelbarrow" is made of two words: "wheel" and "barrow." "Barrow" is a derivation of the Old English "bearwe" which was a device used for carrying loads.

The wheelbarrow is designed to distribute the weight of its load between the wheel and the operator so enabling the convenient carriage of heavier and bulkier loads than would be possible were the weight carried entirely by the operator. As such it is a second-class lever. Traditional Chinese wheelbarrows, however, had a central wheel supporting the whole load. Use of wheelbarrows is common in the construction industry and in gardening. Typical capacity is approximately 100 liters (4 cubic feet) of material.

A two-wheel type is more stable on level ground, while the almost universal one-wheel type has better maneuverability in small spaces, on planks or when tilted ground would throw the load off balance. The use of one wheel also permits greater control of the deposition of the load on emptying.

Extract from Wikipedia. ........

Pulling a weed the hard way.

Pulling Weeds by Hand

The best way, though the hardest, is to pull the weeds by hand. Keep in mind that for this method to be effective, you should remove the whole plant with its roots. For weeds with shallow roots, you can just hold the plant by its stem and pull gently. For those with deeper roots, such as dandelions, you need to take some extra care when removing them. You can use a small hoe to dig in the soil around the stem to loosen the soil, then get a firm grasp of the stem and pull. You may need to dig deeper and try pulling several times until you get the entire root out successfully.

Pulling Weeds With a Gardening Tool

Pulling weeds by hand is time-consuming, back-breaking work. An alternative is to use gardening tools to help. For shallow-rooted weeds, you can use a regular garden hoe, but for deep-rooted ones, I recommend you use a special tool called a winged weeder.

To remove weeds with the winged weeder, place the bottom tip of the blade right next to the stem and press down vertically to push the blade into the soil and then tilt the weeder downwards towards the ground to pull the whole root out. Repeat this operation as necessary. Note that using this tool is more time-consuming than using a regular hoe as you need to individually remove each unwanted plant, but it works better for deeper roots.

You can purchase these tools from any hardware store.

Using a Chemical Weeding Product

If there are too many weeds to remove manually or with a hoe, you can use a weed killer made of chemicals and spray the chemical directly on each weed. It's not environment-friendly, so use only if it is absolutely necessary. Some, like Ortho's Weed-B-Gon, kill many weeds including dandelions, crabgrass, and clover. This product does not damage the lawn. Or you can purchase the concentrate, mix it with water, then spray where needed.

After spraying, you can see results in a day or so. After they die, you'll have remove them by hand, which is difficult, but much easier than pulling a live weed.

A downside of these chemicals is that they may not kill the weeds entirely. The chemical only kills what it touches, and if it was not sprayed sufficiently, the weed may not die, so make sure to cover all unwanted plants sufficiently.

Weed Prevention

To make your weed removal efforts long-lasting, you can take some proactive measures to delay unwanted plants from growing back again by using chemical products or by laying down landscape fabric. Both of these methods are described in detail below.

Using a Weed Preventer

You can use weed preventer granules, such as Preen, to prevent weeds from growing for a temporary period of about three months. Some bottles come with a handy dispenser that enables you to spread the granules around plants, bushes, and trees.

Some weed preventers also come with a fertilizer for plants, so you get both benefits.

Using a Chemical Lawn Fertilizer with Weed Control

A fertilized lawn has fewer weeds since a healthy lawn is dense and leaves little space for unwanted plants to grow. Therefore, both fertilizing your lawn and spreading a weed preventer help control weeds. There are some products available that combine lawn fertilizers with weed control, such as Scott's Turf Builder with Weed Control.

By the way, it is recommended that you fertilize your lawn twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall.

Natural Weed Prevention—Using Landscape Fabric

A chemical can help prevent weeds from growing for only a few months, after which they will reappear if you don't reapply the chemical. For longer-lasting results, you can use landscape fabric, which prevents them from growing for several years. Landscape fabric blocks the sun from the covered area, preventing unwanted plants from growing, although it still allows air, water, and nutrients to penetrate the soil. You can cut holes in this fabric to allow certain plants to live happily.

Use landscape fabric on any area that you don’t want weeds to grow on, large or small, such as a flower bed or a narrow alley that is difficult to mow. Rolls of this material can be purchased from hardware stores like Home Depot or Lowe's or in the garden section of a grocery store.

When laying down the landscape fabric, there are several steps you need to follow. The following video shows how to lay down landscape fabric around plants and it is followed by steps that describe how to completely cover an alley.

garden fork

A garden fork, spading fork, digging fork or graip is a gardening implement, with a handle and several (usually four) short, sturdy tines. It is used for loosening, lifting and turning over soil in gardening and farming. It is used similarly to a spade, but in many circumstances it is more appropriate than a spade: the tines allow the implement to be pushed more easily into the ground, it can rake out stones and weeds and break up clods, it is not so easily stopped by stones, and it does not cut through weed roots or root-crops. Garden forks were originally made of wood, but the majority are now made of carbon steel orstainless steel.

Garden forks are slightly different from pitchforks, which are used for moving loose materials such as piled hay, compost, or manure. Garden forks have comparatively a fairly short, usually wooden handle, with a "D" or "T" end. Their tines are usually shorter, flatter, thicker, and more closely spaced.

A smaller version of such forks with shorter, closer-spaced, thinner tines (but a full-sized handle) is known as a border fork or ladies' fork, and is used for lighter work such as weeding amongst other plants. Forks with broader, flatter tines are made for lifting potatoes and other root crops from the ground. A pair of forks back-to-back is often used to lever apart dense clumps of roots

Rake may refer to:

• Rake (tool), a horticultural implement, a long-handled tool with tines
• Rake or hay rake, a farm implement
• Rake, the caster angle of a bicycle or motorcycle
• Rake angle, a parameter in machining and cutting geometry
• Rake (cellular automaton), a cellular automaton pattern that moves while regularly emitting spaceships
• Rake (character), a man habituated to immoral conduct
• Rake (poker), the commission taken by a casino when hosting a poker game
• Rake (geology), the angle between a feature on a bedding plane and the strike line in geology
• Rake receiver, a radio receiver
• Rake (software), a variant of the make program coded in the Ruby programming language
• Rake (theatre), the artificial slope of a theatre stage
• Rake (train), a group of coupled passenger coaches, or freight wagons, or railcars (excluding the locomotive) that typically move together

Watch what is horticulture on YouTube.... By fatudimu Jephthah.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jSqlDfxWxY

Extract from Wikipedia. ........

Edwards playing for the Young Socceroos in 2013
Personal information
Full name	Ryan Marc Edwards[1]
Date of birth	17 November 1993 (age 22)
Place of birth	Singapore
Height	175 cm (5 ft 9 in)
Playing position	Central midfielder
Club information
Current team	Partick Thistle
Number	19
Youth career
2007–2011	AIS
2011–2012	Reading
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps†	(Gls)†
2012–2015	Reading	7	(0)
2013–2014	→ Perth Glory (loan)	15	(0)
2015–	Partick Thistle	12	(2)
National team‡
2010–2013	Australia U20	18	(2)
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Extract from Wikipedia. ........ Types of hoe

TypesEdit

There are many types of hoes of quite different appearances and purposes. Some can perform multiple functions. Others are intended for a specific use.

Cultivating tool pull or draw hoe

There are two main classes of agricultural hoe: draw hoes for shaping, and scuffle hoes for surface weed control.

A draw hoe has the blade set at approximately a right angle to the handle. The user chops into the ground and then pulls (draws) the blade towards them. Altering the angle of the handle can cause the hoe to dig deeper or more shallowly as the hoe is pulled. A draw hoe can easily be used to cultivate soil to a depth of several inches. A typical design of draw hoe, the "eye hoe", has a ring in the head through which the handle is fitted. This design has been used since Roman times.

A scuffle hoe is used to scrape the surface of the soil, and to loosen the top inch or so, and to cut the roots, remove, and disrupt the growth of weeds efficiently. These are mainly of two different designs: the Dutch hoe and the hoop hoe.

Eye hoe heads, some with sow-tooth (German: Sauzahn), Centro Etnográfico de Soutelo de Montes, Pontevedra,Spain

Cultivating tool push or thrust hoe

The term 'hand hoe' most commonly refers to any type of light-weight, short-handled hoe, although it may be used simply to contrast hand-held tools against animal or machine pulled tools.

Draw hoesEdit

• The typical farming and gardening hoe with a heavy, broad blade and a straight edge is known as the grub hoe, grab hoe, pattern hoe, Italian hoe,azada^[ or dago hoe ("dago" is an ethnic slur referring to Italians, Spaniards, or Portuguese).
• Ridging hoes also known as warren or drill hoes are triangular (point-down) or heart-shaped draw hoes particularly for creating narrow furrows (drills) and shallow trenches for planting seeds and bulbs.

Hoedad (tree-planting tool) Kaibab National Forest, Arizona, USA

• Hoedads (also, "hoedags") are hoe-like tools used for planting trees.ccording to Hartzell (1987, p. 29), "The hoedag [was] originally called skindvic hoe... Hans Rasmussen, legendary contractor and timber farm owner, is credited with having invented the curved, convex, round-nosed hoedag blade which is widely used today" (emphasis added).
• The mortar hoe, a tool specific to hand mixing mortar and concrete, has the appearance of a typical square-bladed draw hoe with the addition of large holes in the blade.

Scuffle hoesEdit

• The Dutch hoe is a design that is pushed or pulled through the soil to cut weeds just under the surface. A Dutch hoe has a blade "sharp on every side so as to cut either forwards and backwards". The blade must be set in a plane slightly upwardly inclined to the dual axis of the rod used as a handle stick. The user uses the handle to push the blade forward, forcing it below the surface of the ground and maintaining it at a shallow depth in the surface layer of soil by altering the angle of the handle whilst pushing. A push hoe can easily cultivate and remove weeds etc. from the surface layer of the soil.
• The hoop hoe (also known as action, oscillating, hula, stirrup, pendulum weeder, or swivel hoes) have a double-edge blade that bends around to form a rectangle attached to the handle. Weeds are cut just below the soil surface as the blade is pushed & pulled through the area. The back and forth motion is highly effective with cutting weeds in loose or breakable soil. Widths of the blade typically range between three and seven inches. Its tool-head is a loop of flat, sharpened strap metal. It is not as efficient as a draw hoe for moving soil.
• The collinear hoe has a narrow, razor-sharp blade which is used to slice weeds by skimming it just under the surface of the soil with a sweeping motion; it is unsuitable for tasks like soil moving and chopping. It was designed by Eliot Coleman in the late 1980s.
• The Swoe hoe is a modern  one-sided cutting hoe - a variant of the Dutch hoe.

Other hoesEdit

Hoes resembling neither draw nor scuffle hoes include:

• Wheel hoes are, as the name suggests, a hoe or pair of hoes attached to one or more wheels. The hoes are frequently interchangeable with other tools.

• Horse hoes, resembling small ploughs, were a favourite implement of agricultural pioneer Jethro Tull, claiming in his book "Horse Hoeing Husbandry" that "the horse-hoe will, in wide intervals, give wheat throughout all the stages of its life, as much nourishment as the discreet hoer pleases". The modern view is that, rather than nutrients being released, the crop simply benefits from the removal of competing plants.The introduction of the horse hoe, together with the better-known seed drill, brought about the great increase farming productivity seen during the British Agricultural Revolution.

Fork-hoe depiction in Der Rebmann (the vine-dresser). Jost Amman, Das Ständebuch, 1568

• Fork hoes, (also known as prong hoes, tined hoes or bent forks) are hoes that have two or more tines at right angles to the shaft. Their use is typically to loosen the soil, prior to planting or sowing.
• Clam hoes, made for clam digging
• Adze hoes, with the basic hoe shape but heavier and stronger and with traditional uses in trail making,
• Pacul or cangkul (hoes similar to adze hoe from Malaysia and Indonesia)
• Gang hoes for powered use (in use at least from 1887 to 1964