Local Interest

Federal law prohibits children under 16 years of age from using certain equipment on a farm unless their parents or legal guardians own the farm.

As temperatures begin to warm up, I notice many fields covered with purple henbit flowers in Southeast Nebraska. Henbit is one of the most common winter annual weeds in the region, along with weeds like downy brome, field pennycress, marestail, tansy mustard, and prickly lettuce.

We are entering the season to plant spring vegetable gardens. As the saying goes, “Plant your potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day” or others say to go with Good Friday. Either way, these cool season vegetables can be planted now. But be cautious with your plants, they could be injured by late freezing temperatures or frost events.
Spring is here, officially, but that doesn’t mean we should get overly excited and go clean up our landscape beds just yet. However, Asparagus will soon be emerging from previous plantings and new plantings can be started soon.
Winter can sometimes be very long, especially for a gardener. It is hard for us to stay indoors in the cold weather when we want to be outside working in our garden year-round. However, you can start your growing season early by starting seeds indoors. I have taken up the hobby of starting seeds indoors and it has continually expanded every year because I am enjoying it so much.

In the past year, Nebraska Extension has hired seven Water & Cropping Systems Extension Educators across the state. One of the most impactful roles for a Water & Cropping Systems Educator is to work with growers in their areas to conduct on-farm research. As a result of these new hires, there are great opportunities for farmers to engage with new Educators and grow the on-farm research base in many areas across the state where Educator positions have been vacant for several years. We are part of this new group of Educators, and we are very eager to develop on-farm research studies in our accountability regions in southeast Nebraska. Ritika covers Nemaha, Johnson, Pawnee, and Richardson counties, and John covers Lancaster, Cass, and Otoe.

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