July Newsletter - Burke County

Don't Just Survive This Summer, Thrive!

Summer used to be a simpler time for parents and their children. Operating at a slower pace than the school year, evenings were filled with cookouts and family time. Kids rode their bikes with neighborhood friends until darkness meant it was time to go home. Today, online friends and a world of connectivity keep everyone so together but alone.
I asked a group of parents to describe summer with kids in three words. A recurring theme was that summer expectations are grand, leaving parents tired and frustrated.

As parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles we have the power to make a turn back to slower times. Take time this summer to invest in a child in your life. Teach them how to properly wash dishes, change a tire, clean the refrigerator, home maintenance tasks or how to sit on the creek bank and fish.

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Controlling Poison Ivy
Taylor Campbell, Extension Agent, Horticulture

Now that we are all spending more time outside, it is important to know how to identify poison ivy. We’ve all heard “leaves of three, leave it be”, but there is more to identifying poison ivy. Poison ivy grows in a vine, with clusters of three oval-shaped leaves that range in color from green to orange. The leaves have a waxy surface. The oily resin on the leaves causes many people to experience an itchy rash characterized by small clusters of red bumps. While I can’t speak to controlling the itch, I can recommend measures on controlling the growth of poison ivy.

The first method of defense is manual removal. Be sure to wear gloves and long sleeves for this process, and to wash up afterwards. If there is too much poison ivy to manually remove, you can use a contact herbicide such as RoundUp. Spray in late summer to early fall. You can also create a barrier using cardboard or a dark colored cloth to cover the plant and prevent it from getting sunlight. Keep in mind these two practices could harm other plants in your landscape.

Summer Fescue Management
Damon Pollard, Extension Agent, Livestock

Fescue is a cool season grass, upright growing, and perennial grass. No matter if we are growing it for hay, pasture or in a lawn, those three situations determine our management regime during the summer months. Because it is a perennial, it stores nutrients in the stem, or tiller, for regrowth after cutting or grazing. Because of its upright growth habit, the leaf sticks up above the stem. We can remove a great deal of leaf without seriously damaging the plant as long as we don’t remove the nutrient reserves in the tiller. Being a cool season grass, it goes dormant, or semi-dormant, during the hot dry months of summer. We can’t use fertilizer to force it to grow during this time without incurring the risk of disease damage, and there is a real danger of overgrazing during this time. So, how do we manage it? Remove the ends of the leaves through mowing or grazing to allow sunlight and air movement to reach down into the crown. This helps to prevent disease problems and encourages the buds at the base of the crown to produce more tillers. Do not cut, or graze into the tillers, as leaving the nutrient reserves and some leaf allow for rapid regrowth. Always remember, what you have above the ground is what is below the ground as the plant is in balance. The more top growth you remove, the fewer roots you have to fuel leaf production. So raise that disc mower and rotate your livestock frequently for a healthier, faster growing stand of fescue.