I am not sure I want to by a 40lb. bag of lime and spread it over my lawn
just for the Hell of it. I KNOW it is good for the lawn....
However--since I have no memory of the last time I did it--I should probably do it .

Need to buy another HEAVY bag of soil amendment....Not sure I can justify it???

Will do--next day I work....Gita

I thought grass liked a basic soil? I was surprised to see you say 6.5-7 was good and below 6 even better. Below 6 would be mildly acidic.

No... between 6 and 7 is okay but between 6.5 and 7 is optimal. If below 6, definitely bring it up. Above 7, you can drop it by using granular sulfur.

Does clover like a lower pH than grass? Wondering if an application of lime would help grass "win" over clover...

Not sure but I know what it doesn't like... Weed B Gon.

I let my clover do its thing...within reason

Me too, but the relatively small amount of front yard really does need to be just turf grass.

I have a mystery to solve here---actually, it is my daughter's mystery--
but I told her i would post this here for all the Gurus to solve.
So--here goes--it IS actually about a plant thing...(??)...

Aina my DD-has two concrete w/box beds on either side of her steps to the house.
I usually get her something pretty to plant in there.
This spring--she planted red Celosias (from me) on both sides in the planters.

Now--as fall is approaching--she was cleaning out the planters and had her hand in them
to remove roots and whatever out of the soil--and then--THESE things were in there!
In both planters---on both sides of the steps. There was no other plants in there-just the celosias.

They are perfectly round, green "balls" about the size of a tennis ball. This is the mystery!
WHAT are they--and where did they come from?????

Anyone???? please tell me if you can decipher this mystery. Thanks, Gita

Are there any black walnut trees in the area? Maybe the squirrel decided those boxes make great larders!

Rick---Hmmmmmmm.....I have no idea what a black walnut "seed case" looks like...
But--that could be it.....Never knew the BW seeds came in that big a casing/??

Any mote ideas??? Thanks. Gita

Oh yeah, they do. I spent many childhood days picking them up off the ground and chucking them up at the seed pods still left on the tree on my grandparents farm. With the casing, they are almost the exact size of a baseball. I later became a pitcher in little league and high school. It's about the only good thing that ever came from one of those nasty trees.

Yeah definitely black walnut. As a kid we would collect them and they would dry out in the garage. Then we'd have a tasty treat in the winter when we cracked them open with a hammer. Yummo!

Gita - those outer husks on the black walnuts turn brown and soft if lying about outdoors. When they get that way they are very effective at staining hands, clothing, pavement....

Ha... my mother used to give me and my sister hell for coming in with black stained hands from throwing them for hours.

Larry's grandfather used to gather them up in the fall and spend a month or so, shelling them in such a way as to have the ENTIRE nut meat in one piece. He would put them up in jars and give them away as Christmas. I actually had to coax Larry to switch from walnuts to pecans as I'm allergic to walnuts.

Wow, a one piece nut meat is pretty hard to do. We used to pick them out of the nut shell and eat them off the skinny screwdrivers.

Arrived in MN and wanted to share this beautiful sky with you all!! Normally my compositions are tighter but only had my cell (digital zoom gag) plus wanted to really show off this sky!! WOWZERS!!!

Wow! Thanks all on the Black Walnut ID.
Assuming a squirrel buried them--how small would they have been in the beginning?
Dod the small nuts then grow to the baseball size while buried?
I can see them growing while on the tree--but picked up off the ground ans buried
seems a mystery to me.

I don't know a lot about black walnuts.... Gita

No, they grow on the tree with that soft casing around them to the size of a baseball. They fall to the ground in Autumn, then the soft casing deteriorates leaving the hard shell and nut as winter proceeds. Or a squirrel may dig away at the soft casing to get to the nut inside.

Gita - What you show in your photo is the fruit of the black walnut tree. Green on the tree, starts to turn yellow and falls to the ground, where it yellows more, then turns brown. Inside is a nut with a very hard, corrugated shell, which contains the meat of the nut. Think of it as a round avocado with a tougher outer covering, and the pit inside containing a nut meat. Those balls you show did not grow that way in the ground from the nut, rather the process is the reverse; bury the ball in the ground where it will deteriorate, and the nut inside germinate and sprout.