Fall is just around the corner and there's no better time of year to renovate your lawn. Take a hard look at your grass and decide just how much work you have ahead of you.

• If you just need to thicken it up, a round of over-seeding will probably do the trick. To ensure good seed to soil contact you might want to make use of a verticutter. This handy machine, which can be rented locally, makes nice vertical cuts in your existing lawn and soil. Over this cutting you can broadcast your seeds. Seeds should find their way into the soil where they will germinate nicely.
• Every other year or so you should try core aerating your lawn. Doing so will control and prevent problems such as thatch and soil compaction. Core aerating machines will pull up numerous plugs of soil about the diameter of a pencil, making holes into the lawn. Leave the plugs on the surface and work the lawn as usual.
• If your lawn is so overridden with perennial weeds or you're ready to try a new type of grass altogether you will need to eliminate what's there with Round Up or other appropriate herbicide. Once the grass and weeds are dead use a verticutter or roto-tiller to prepare the soil for new seed.

A note about weeds - If crabgrass is appearing in your lawn in mid to late summer, remember that it's an annual and will die-off as temperatures drop later this fall. For perennial weeds it is best to delay herbicide applications until a newly planted lawn has been mowed at least 3 times. This gives the new grass time to mature to a point where it is not so sensitive to the weed killer.

Vegetable harvest can be confusing - especially if you're still new at it. Here are some quick tips to help with a few local favorites:

• Harvest onions after the tops yellow and fall, then cure them in a warm, dry, well-ventilated area. The necks should be free of moisture when fully cured in about a week's time.
• Harvest potatoes after the tops yellow and die. Potatoes also need to be cured before storage.
• Pick beans, tomatoes, peppers and squash often to encourage further production.
• Harvest sweet corn when kernels are plump and ooze a milky juice when punctured with your fingernail. If the liquid is watery, you're too early; if the kernels are doughy, you're too late.

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