Raybo, Celery should be mounded up with loose dirt at least 6 inches on the stalks to blanch the stems. Celery is mildly poisonous and blanching helps reduce the level of toxins. The leaves make excellent flavoring for soups and stews. Celery is a cool season crop best grown either in late fall or early spring. It can handle short periods of sub freezing temps down to 22 degrees, but this seriously slows down growth. Do NOT grow celery in the heat of the summer, it will not be happy. Knowing your climate, you could probably grow it successfully from either December or January seed start. It is best started in cell trays with 2 or 3 seed per cell. The above tip about taking 12 weeks from seed to transplant is pretty close. I've managed to transplant at 8 weeks but the plants are small. My suggestion would be to fill an earthtainer 1/2 full of a very rich soil mix and set the plants to grow. When the plants are nearly full size, fill the earthtainer up with peat moss to induce blanching. DarJones

Yowzaa! I don't know if this is the year of bad weeds or the year of good photography!! First of all 5 hours is good for an oscillator. Mine takes 8 hours to get an inch. 1/8 inch per hour. Secondly, here is the consolidated wisdom of the ages on this forum: don't ever use weed-n-feed. You will not get the results you expect to get. It has such an appealing name and the concept is great, but the chemicals used just can't deliver. The problem is that weeds die best when they are the healthiest and sucking in all the soil has to offer. When you apply wnf, you get an immediate weed killing effect and a delayed fertilizer effect. By the time the fertilizer kicks in on the weeds, the herbicide is long gone. It is the worst of both worlds. It is much better to use a real fertilizer (but not in this heat) followed 2 weeks later by a real herbicide (but not in this heat). Your real problem now is you have grassy weeds. You cannot selectively kill grasses in among your real grass. Do you still have the bag of grass seed you used? I suspect it had a relatively high weed seed content. That's not necessarily so, but with the mix you have it is a good possibility. Really good grass seed is expensive. This is your hobby so you have to decide. The good news is that your coarse bladed weeds are crabgrass. Crabgrass is a hot season annual grass. It will die completely in the fall. Furthermore it will not come back in the spring except by new seed sprouting. Bad news there is you have puh-lenty of new seed. But the good news is you also have Kentucky bluegrass in your mix. Your job this fall is to get as much KBG spreading as you possibly can. If you can get 100% coverage with KBG and keep it mowed up to 3 inches, then you have an excellent shot at a weed free lawn all next season with minimal attention. Also, NEVER SEED IN THE SPRING OR SUMMER, unless you absolutely have no alternative. Your lawn is really not that unusual for a spring seeded lawn. We try to tell people this year after year but some still slip through. There should be a law against selling grass seed before late August. If you decide to do some thing really drastic like redo this lawn, my observation is that the soil level is higher than the bottom of the house. It is hard to see because of the shadow so it might be an illusion. If that is the case, then before you start a renovation on this lawn, soil should be removed, not brought in. This would normally be a job for a landscaper but you live in WV. You guys are animals and may prefer to do it yourself. All water should drain away from the buildings no matter what. If you develop a puddle next to the house when it rains, that is a serious problem. Any soil can be improved from the surface without plowing or rototilling, so when I see someone bringing in new topsoil, I start looking for known issues. Keep the water on it if you can. Let it grow up to 4 or even 5 inches before mowing. Summer heat is enough stress. Mowing it short causes much more stress. Wait until it cools off to the low 80s before mowing it back to 3 inches. It will be stressed but should be okay since the temps are cooler. If you cannot resist the temptation to do something good for the grass, then use organic fertilizer. You can get it cheap in the form of Purina Rabbit Chow at the feed store. Apply at 20 pound per 1,000 square feet every 3-4 weeks and you will be surprised how good it looks. Oh I can't resist the urge. Here is mrmumbles alfalfa test in his zoysia lawn from June this year. This shows what to expect from alfalfa pellets.

It was said: "The white eggs are the leafminer eggs." Could be. Look at this blurb from Colorado http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/Insect/05548.html As has already been said, the spinach and beets both have leafminer. Two different kinds, but still leafminer. (Explained in the above blurb.) As for the arugula, it's in bud and will soon flower. Leaves get rank tasting when that happens. Start over, either with seeds or young transplants. Celery is short on nitrogen. Here is a link that might be useful: leafminers

OK, my short answer is try using mulch!! I recently attended a lecture on home gardens and one thing that was mentioned was never use any kind of weed barrier. Landscaping cloth etc. I guess in the long run it causes more problems than solves. It kills the soil underneath it, weeds just grow on top of it, it is not a good thing! The best way I can think of is to remove weeds and add mulch to minimize their return.You need 2 to 3 inches of it. Our flower garden is old and I would really like just to remove everything and start over. It seems certain perennials overrun the garden anyway. I thin them more than weeds. Ground covers also hide and smother the weeds too, But try getting rid of them, just as the weeds, near impossible. I'm more into the edible part of my garden. I have run into another problem, the wife, she considers the flower garden hers but does little to nothing to it. Hopefully I can get her to let me take it over, and I will just remove everything, replant what we want, and mulch heavily. It is something you will need to do yearly (mulching that is, you can get by at times doing it every 2 years, but I tend to add fresh mulch every year). It does help, and builds the soil. Anybody who grows edibles uses mulch, it is required to keep the plants moist, and to keep the soil rich. I do not have problems with weeds around my fruit trees, blueberries, raspberries, or strawberries. So yes, it works quite well. I use three different kinds, because of the needs of my fruit plants. I use mostly pine bark, and since I can get it free, pine straw. This keeps my strawberries out of the dirt, you have to cover them in the winter completely too. Many use regular straw for this, pine needles looks better, and my in-laws up in northern MI have ton's and ton's of it as they own a few lots which are covered in pine and spruce trees. The supply is unlimited, and free. I also use cypress as it is not as acidic as pine. My lilacs bushes do not like acid, so I use cypress, which is still acidic, but not as much as pine. I add lime to keep the soil basic where the lilacs are. You can get colored bark too, I guess it probably would look nicer for a bit, until the sun fades it. I really do not care. I use mulch because it is needed to properly care for my edible plants. I could give a rip how it looks, although it looks good! So now I buy extra to use in the flower garden. So far few weeds have come up, and those that do stick out and are easy to spot and pull. I would still like to start over though, it's been years and would look neater etc. Good luck! This post was edited by Drew51 on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 23:56