Shadey, You've been given lots of advice here. My 2 cents, is to go with oldroser and josie23's advice. Use the Roundup, especially if there is creeping charlie or other hard to eliminate weeds. Peppers will be fine here in the Chicago metro area planted now. Cherry tomatoes are also an excellent choice both because as Oldroser points out, kids love them, and also because they are fast growers and prolific bearers. Even if your garden is not ready for a week or two, you can pot up peppers and toms to larger containers if necessary. Chicago weather can be extreme and difficult to predict. Last fall a freak snow nailed my tomato plants in early October. The previous fall I was picking tomatoes in November. No frost and warm weather made for a long season. Bush beans are also a good choice, generally not planted here until June 1 when the soil is well warmed. People succession plant them through the summer (I don't find that necessary, but some people do this) so you can plant them very late and still get a fine crop. Swiss chard will do fine too. It is certainly too late for a spring crop of peas, lettuce, spinach or any of the cool season, early start veggies. However, you can plant these in late summer for a fall crop, and perhaps even do better than with a spring planting. Seeds germinate much quicker in warm soil and you won't be plagued by spinach bolting or peas being unhappy in the hot mid summer weather. I assume that this garden is meant to be a learning experience for the kids, and late summer planting can be full of interesting lessons. Best of luck, Petro

We have these invasive flowering pear trees all around. They are like the borg. In riprarian areas, vacant lots and pastures. If it were my land and I didn't intend to farm it, I suppose I would plant the pasture with the most-agressive native tree I could find (at the lowest cost, in bulk) and try to crowd them out. Around here I'd try some weedy natives, like maybe Red Maple and kick in some desirables like Tulip Poplar, a few good pines, bald cypress in the wet spots and maybe a few "import" desirables like dawn redwood to dress it up -- my grandkids would have a forest! I've put some thought into this becuase a few lots I've contemplated buying are former pine plantations that were cut out, but the pines pioneer back in pretty quick. If you have a tractor and disk harrow to turn the soil, I don't know if tilling it up good during the driest/hottest part of the year would kill 'em off -- of course then you'd have to contend with erosion from any rain showers that popped up.

Hi--So wonderful that you are starting a garden for the butterflies! You may get addicted and start putting in new beds and expanding existing ones. The A. incarnata depending on soil and moisture can get pretty tall 3-4 tall and may need up to 3 feet width. A. tuberosa generally stays about 2 feet and may expand 2 feet or so. I plant my gardens pretty tight so that the there is plenty of cover for the caterpillars and places for them to pupate. I just make sure I keep enriching the soil with a steady supply of compost and organic fertilizer. The butterfly weeds will provide a wonderful nectar source as well as food for the Monarch caterpillar, which tend to be voracious in their later stages. In order to be very attractive for butterflies, gardens need to have large drifts of nectar rich flowers, so that means having multiple plants all set next to each other. Have fun!

First thing is to do a soil test. The recommended test cost $25 at Logan Labs in Ohio. Post your results here to get a custom analysis and recommendation. Then decide how you want to proceed. If you want to sod now, kill everything with glyphosate, water for 1 week, then kill what grows again with glyphosate. **If you are going to sod Zoysia, do a 3rd round of watering and glypho. If you are going to sod bermuda just the 1st 2 rounds are enough. Another option is to kill the weeds with Celsius and Sulfo, then wait and see. Water your lawn like was new sod and see how much bermuda you can grow in the next month. It won't be much, if anything but at least give it a chance. Bermuda is very resilient, you may think it's gone, but it's not. If you have tall weeds they will simply shade out the bermuda. Getting rid of the weed competition may open the door for some of you bermuda to return. You should have a good sense of how much bermuda remains late Spring/early Summer. No matter what path you choose you will need to start a good pre-emergent routine NOW to ward of Winter weeds and continue the pre-emergent routine for the rest of you life. Prodiamine Sulfo Celsius