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If timing is everything, book can help

By Kathy Van Mullekom Daily Press (Newport News, Va.)

Best time to kill dandelions? Fall — because they are in a growth cycle that makes them more vulnerable to weed killers. Apply the herbicide in the morning to allow sun to help the weed killer soak into the plant tissue more effectively.

Best time to mulch leaves with a mower? When they are less than an inch thick on your lawn. Too many leaves equals too much mulch, which blocks sun and rain from going where they need to go.

Best time to eliminate wasps? Winter, when the queen and all the others hibernate inside the nest.

They are three of the hundreds of when-to-do-what or get-what questions and answers in a new book Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon by Mark DiVincenzo.

A guide to the best time to buy this, do that and go there, the 192-page paperback will be released Oct. 6. Priced at $13.99, the book can be purchased in advance at www.buyketchupinmay.com; you'll find more questions and answers there, too.

"The premise of the book is there's a best time to do just about everything, and there are chapter on workplace issues, health, education, travel, buying and selling — something for everyone," says DiVincenzo, 47, a former reporter and editor at the Daily Press, a newspaper in southeastern Virginia.