On a crowded Saturday morning a long time customer walked into the nursery and sang a song for me.
Much to my delight and that of the other customers she sang:
Hello Greg,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody
The old gray goose is dead.The one she's been saving,
The one she's been saving,
The one she's been saving
To make a feather bed.The goslings are mourning,
The goslings are mourning,
The goslings are mourning,
Because their mother's dead.The old gander's weeping,
The old gander's weeping,
The old gander's weeping,
Because his wife is dead.She died in the mill pond,
She died in the mill pond,
She died in the mill pond,
From standing on her head.Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody,
Go tell Aunt Rhody
The old gray goose is dead.
Because of this song we now have an excellent compost tea from GreenSense called Aunt Rohde’s Compost Tea. If you noticed we spelled Rohde’s correctly.
Things to Do in July
Mild temperatures and beautiful June days have helped many gardeners complete their gardening chores early. This has prompted many wives to find honey-do’s for their honeys to do. I will try to give you a small list of things that can and should be done during July to help maintain a beautiful lawn and a happy marriage.
Speaking of Happy Marriages, on June 30th Sandra and I celebrated our 17th anniversary. We have spent seventeen beautiful years as a married couple. After 17 years of eating her Cajun style cooking, I have finally become an expert of scraping off the blackened ashes from most of her meals. Just the other day as Sandra boiled water to pour in to our bottled water dispenser, she was even able to blacken the pot used for that process. I have also become familiar with half of the Plano Fire Department and am very grateful to live so near their fire station.
Did you know that if you pour boiling water into the bottled water dispenser you can keep the dispenser clean and fresh tasting.
Things that Should Be Done in July
Start raising the height of your lawn mower to allow the grass to shade the root system and the soil below it. This will help retain moisture and promote deeper root growth. Experts say that root growth should equal foliage height.
Water wisely. Deep watering promotes deep roots. Water daily or every other day and the roots will find moisture at the surface and not work their way down in to the soil. I water every 7 days unless we have had a nice summer rain. Depending on how much rain we received I will water when needed.
Mulch the beds. It does not matter what kind of mulch you use, cedar, hardwood, cypress or pine straw, just use it. Make sure that you maintain 3 inches of mulch over all of your beds. After mulching wet it down. You may have noticed that when the mulch is in the bag it can get very hot. I like to water the mulch as soon as we put it down. This helps to cool it down and get moisture to the soil as soon as possible.
Look for moist low areas around the foundation or in corners of your lot where mosquitoes may be. Fill in the low spots, use a “Bti” product or spray the area with GreenSense Citrus-nella Repella.
Learn more about organic controls of insects and disease in and out of the house.
On a cool, cloudless night ask your neighbors to turn off the lights in their back yards. Then place a bed sheet on the grass. With your children or spouse and a bowl of fresh fruit go out to the yard and observe the stars. Enjoy.
Things that Should NOT Be Done in July
Do not trim trees. Some arborists say that after June 15th it is safe to trim trees, including oaks. I disagree. Do not trim or let anyone trim your trees in the summer. If you have a branch that can cause physical damage to a person or structure remove that branch. Leave the rest of the trimming for the winter. When you trim a tree in the summer you expose shaded areas to sunlight and can cause burning to those leaves.
Do not do major landscape projects if you will be gone for more then a week in the heat of the summer. Newly planted materials need extra water in the early days of root establishment.
Do not forget to put fresh water out for the birds that visit your yard.
Do not spray wasps just because they are in your backyard. Just learn where they have built their nest and stay away from them
Do not forget to water around the foundation of your house and remember over-watering can cause the house to lift.
Polymers
Polymers act as a reservoir of water that is available to plants on demand, reducing the amount and frequency of watering and fertilizing. The plant roots grow directly into the water-swollen polymer, which can absorb up to 90 percent of the available water. Because you do not water as often you reduce the leaching of fertilizer from the soil, but polymers actually absorb water-soluble fertilizers and hold them. Polymers are environmentally safe and do not contaminate ground water, soil or plants. Polymers break down into their component parts of ammonia, carbon dioxide and water with no residual toxicity in four to five years. GreenSense SolidWater or other polymers should not be inhaled or digested and should be kept out of reach of children. The Jell-O like appearance is enticing to kids, so use caution and keep them out of reach.
The Lawn
I have seen such good results with GreenSense Lawn & Garden Microbial Treatment that I think every lawn in Dallas should have this product applied as soon as possible. Using our penetrometer we have seen a great reduction in compaction in several lawns within a three-month period where the microbes were applied.
Aerate the lawn to help reduce compaction and apply a thin layer of compost over the lawn. Any rain or water that you put out on the lawn will be able to enter quickly in to the soil and penetrate deeper.
Fertilize the lawn using an organic fertilizer that contains molasses. Besides feeding the soil you will also feed the microbes and worms encouraging them to work faster and create more tunnels for the air, moisture and root systems of plants to grow through.
Be on the look out for chinch bugs. Chinch bug damage usually happens when the lawn is hot and dry, and the damage may appear next to sidewalks and driveways. Bermuda grass seems to have more damage by chinch bugs then St. Augustine.
Chinch bugs are easy to control with Diatomaceous Earth.
Beneficial Nematodes
At this time of the year when things are hot and dry we recommend BN’s only if you have a heavy flea infestation. Apply them around the foundation of the house and around the fence line, in groundcover areas and under trees. Remember, BN’s must be applied in soils that will be kept moist through the summer.
The Vegetable Garden
This is the time to start your seeds for fall gardens. Start with a really good potting soil, and place the soil in small pots or egg cartons. Make sure that you have good drainage. Place two or three seeds in each container and place the containers in lots of sunlight so the seeds can germinate.
Fertilize the existing vegetable garden with a good fertilizer that contains cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal and trace minerals like GreenSense Vegetable & Flower Food. Apply foliar sprays early in the morning and add an extra tablespoon of kelp (seaweed) to your solution to help the plants through the heat stress. GreenSense Foliar Juice and GreenSense Kelp make great applications for newly planted vegetable seeds and transplants.
Stake tomatoes and cover them with bird netting. Many customers think that if the leaves of the plants are covering the fruit they should remove these leaves so that they can expose the fruit to sunlight. Removing leaves does not hasten ripening and may result in sunscald.
Beneficial Nematodes can be applied to the vegetable garden since we tend to keep the soil moist. BN’s will go after many of the insects that ruin our vegetable plants.
Spider mites thrive in hot weather. If leaves of plants have a stained appearance, inspect the undersides of the leaves and look for webbing. Hose mites off the foliage. Spraying an extra dose of kelp at a rate of three ounces to a gallon of water helps to prevent spider mites. Some Neem Oil products are registered for use on food crops, but remember that Neem will also kill your beneficial insects.
Annual Flowers and Perennials
Pinch faded flowers off annuals and perennials. If allowed to go to seed, the plant will direct its energy toward seed production instead of forming new blooms.
If you are trying to attract birds and you want the seed for food, disregard the above advice.
Remember that when a plant is in production it is also highly stressed and needs more nutrients. Feed with a solid fertilizer such as cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal and rock phosphate. Blend a combination of your own or buy a ready to use product like GreenSense Vegetable & Flower Food.
Symptoms of drought stress include wilting flowers and droopy, off-color foliage.
Mulch around plants, this will help keep weeds down and to reduce water evaporation.
Water deeply and on an irregular basis and, if possible, water early in the morning. Do not over water.
Shrubs and Trees
If you have not yet pruned spring-flowering shrubs do it now. Fertilize once a month until you start to see buds forming on the plant. At that point the excess nitrogen may burn the buds. Maintain a three-inch thick mulch cover to reduce water evaporation and discourage weed growth.
Remember that trees can be pruned lightly now, but do so only if you have to.. Be careful! If you prune heavily you may expose shaded leaves and bark to too much sun and cause sunscald.
Now that it is getting hot, this is the second best time to trim Live Oaks, but only if it is absolutely necessary. Only trim trees if the branches are growing in a direction that could cause property or bodily damage. If at all possible, wait until winter.
We have had several customers bring in samples of leaves that they thought were infected with oak wilt. We have consulted with arborist that come into our store and have found out that oak leaf blister is a fungal leaf spot disease caused by the fungus Taphrina deformans. It is a spring disease common in southern states on all oak species. Severe leaf blister can result in widespread early defoliation. With well-established trees, early defoliation will not cause tree death, but it will reduce tree vigor.
Symptoms. Early in the spring, small, rough (concave-convex) spots will begin to appear as the leaves expand. Gradually, the spots will become pale green in color and somewhat thickened. Older spots are brown or greenish brown. Leaves with numerous spots will fall prematurely to the ground. If well-established trees defoliate before midsummer, they will sometimes leaf out later in the season. When defoliation occurs in the late summer, leaf loss will have little impact on the tree's health. (Texas A&M).
No treatment is necessary.
Oak wilt is a major tree disease caused by the fungus, Ceratocystis fagacearum. This fungus plugs the water conducting vessels of certain oaks and greatly reduces the flow of water up the stem of the tree. Eventually, as more of the vessels become clogged, the tree will begin to wilt and most often die. In live oaks, leaves on infected trees show a characteristic pattern. The veins on the leaf will turn yellow or brown, while the rest of the leaf remains green. This very distinctive pattern is called veinal necrosis. Some leaves may turn yellow with only the veins remaining green (interveinal chlorosis), or the tips of some leaves may turn brown (tip burn). (The City of Austin's Oak Wilt Coordinator).
Heat Stress. Many trees are showing symptoms of heat stress caused by the last two summers (1999-2000). Actually many tress are dying because of the extreme heat and dry conditions. If you walk around the neighborhood or if you notice trees that are starting to die at the top that could be a result from last year’s drought.
Several customers have brought in samples of sweet gums that have very pale green leaves and in some cases they are yellow with burnt tips. As I’ve driven around Dallas lately I have noticed more sick looking sweet gums, also. We know that sweet gums do better in sandy acidic soils than our black clay soils. The use of Sul-Po-Mag may help temporally but you might consider planting a better-adapted tree near the sweet gum. Let this second tree grow some before removing the sickly sweet gum.
This is a good time to try Howard Garrett’s sick tree treatment and GreenSense Mycor Tree Root Saver.
Corn Meal: Not Just for Lawns
Following Howard Garrett’s advice, we started recommending corn meal for fungal problems on lawns and have had great results with this product. We have started to apply cornmeal in our landscape projects. Cornmeal works great as a control for diseases in plants like Periwinkle and Zinnias. We have one customer who planted 20 Black Foot Daisies in the early spring when we were still getting a lot of rain.. After a week in the ground half of his plants looked like they were about to die. We recommended that he ease up on his watering and that he try applying cornmeal around each plant. A month later he came in with a video recording of his Daisies and was pleased to show that even the sickest of the plants recovered.
One day I heard Howard on his radio show speak about the benefits of corn meal for fungal problems on toes. Well, I just happen to know a lady who had been taking Spornox for her toe fungi for about one year. The medication cost her $250.00, and you could not see any improvement. I went home and told this lady that I know about the cornmeal for toe fungi and reluctantly she tried it. She actually boiled water and poured it over half a pound of cornmeal in a shallow pan. When it cooled down just enough she put her foot in and soaked it for an hour. Two weeks later her toenail was changing colors. Another two weeks and she tried it again. After two weeks had passed you could now see a clean area just above the cuticle. It has been about three months since that lady that I know has done her cornmeal toe treatment and now her toe has completely cleaned up.
Repairing an Existing Lawn II
Last June I did what I though would be a one-time article on lawn repair. I got more comments and feed back from that article then any other article that I have done before. But, that was not enough. Just last week I had three people that worked on their lawns following my advice and that of Don Trotter. Much to my delight they want more. What is the next step, they demanded. Proper mowing is very important. Start your engines!
A badly mowed lawn is an ugly lawn.
So many times you see the homeowner start his lawnmower next to the garage and week after week he will head off in the same direction. Following the same path and many times running out of gasoline in the exact same spot. He walks back to the garage to get his gas can and pours it into the lawnmowers tank, until it overflows out of the tank onto the grass. Once I even saw one of my employees pour gas until it overflowed on to the engine. The gas ignited and burst into flames. After standing next to the lawn mower looking at it in disbelief. I ran to get the fire extinguisher. When I got back he was spraying the lawn mower with a water hose. Well, that does not work very well the as had now spread with the water and was burning an area about 10 feet from the lawn mower. I started to use the extinguisher directly on the lawn mower and after just a couple of blast I had it extinguished. The grass was still on fire and was heading towards the rose bed. Luckily we had the fire under control within seconds. “Cool” said my ex-employee.
In May I went out and did some lawn inspections. I noticed that one particular customer had a very large riding lawn mower; it must have weighed 1200 pounds or more. He went over the same tracks week after week and told me that his lawn mower could mow the lawn even after a rain.
His lawn had ruts were the tires compacted the soil; it looked like a well-traveled dirt road. The ruts were so wide that brown patch had taken over all the low rows created by the tires. The ruts were so low that the aerator could not even reach the soil to penetrate it.
I know what you are thinking. The above example is a rare situation. Is that what you think? You are wrong. Most lawns mowed by riding mowers or large commercial walk behinds leave little room for directional changes. Most lawns mowed by teenagers are also mowed in the same direction week after week after week. Causing the tires to form well-worn ruts in the grass.
The simple task of alternating mowing directions from one week to the other will minimize soil compaction and will let the grass blades grow in different directions as opposed to the same direction of the same directional weekly mowing.
Our crews change direction of mowing on a weekly basis and will not repeat that same direction until the fourth week.
If you have shallow ruts fill in the low spots with compost that contains sandy loam.
Last month I told you of two companies that I prefer Clear Fork Materials in Aledo, they can be reached at 817-441-7777. Clear Fork Materials can blend lava sand into their compost/loam mix.
The second company is Contractors Stone and Supply in Plano. Their phone number is 972-516-1468.
I really like ordering more then I need and storing it in an out of the way area off of the driveway. Do not put 2 inches of compost out at a time. Just barely cover the grass with enough compost to bend the blades back. After a week or two repeat the process. Do this as often as you need to.
The customer with the powerful lawnmower that will cut grass that has just been rained on is causing more compaction and other problems as well. Wet grass clumps on the lawn and create more problems like brown spots where the sun does not reach the grass and brown patch were the fungi starts to grow under the warming moist grass clippings.
We always say do not bag the grass. Instead of mowing wet clumpy grass wait until it dries and then leave it on the ground. Grass clippings add fertilizer to the lawn. Some of our organic customer tells us that they only fertilize their lawn three times a year since they have been mulching the grass clipping. Remember that if you do not have to stop to empty the grass catcher you can finish the job faster and save on gasoline.
I have seen people mow steep embankments with push mowers after a rain. At first it is funny to see the mowers slip and slide. But, the time that I saw one guy lose his balance, he let go of the lawn mower, the lawn mower rolled out on to the street where it was hit by a truck. The truck driver lost control of his bladder that made him loose control of his vehicle and hit the curb. It could have been worse.
Sharpen the blades often. My crews take their mowers to be serviced weekly and part of that service is to get the blades sharpened. After each mowing and after the engine has cooled off wash off the lawn mower and the blade. By doing so you may stop the spread of weeds and disease.
Do not use a lawn mower for something that it was not intended such as trimming woody plants and groundcovers. Do not remove the tires from the ground by tilting the front of the mower. Objects can and will fly out and possibly hurt some curios on looker.
If you are unhappy with the color of the lawn or the slow spread of the grass fertilize more often, but do so at a lower rate. If the grass is not green enough for you try products like Texas Greensand, this product contains 19% iron. You can also apply Sul-Po-Mag,
It contains 22% sulphur and 11% magnesium. Last but not least try using what you already have in the soil. There are micronutrients and carbon matter just waiting for a microbe to find them, Once the microbe digest it plants will be able to locate this matter and use it for their own food.
More on Lawns
by Don Trotter
Hello fellow Earthlings and welcome to our second installment on Lawns. I think we should get right to it so let's go out to the yard and take a good look at your turf.
Feeding your lawn with natural products and materials depends on creating a living system in the soil your lawn is growing in. Natural turf care and feeding count on materials like compost to increase biological activity in soils in order to make the natural plant foods work faster and for longer periods of time to keep your lawn lush and green. Natural lawn foods average less than half the nitrogen and many are less than a third s strong as they're chemical counterparts. When I feed a lawn or counsel a gardener on feeding their lawn I try to inform them of the many things that natural lawn foods do for the soil and the many other significant contributions they provide for the overall vigor of the lawn ecosystem.
Turf grass is not a natural thing. There are few places on the planet where a single kind of grass grows, totally excluding all other plants except for the residential lawn. It is the challenge of gardeners and especially natural gardener to make this unnatural gathering of plants into an efficiently functioning system of biological processes resulting in an emerald green lawn. This can be a daunting task when it comes to weed control, pest insect and disease control, and then there's always Bubba to tell you you're a loon for not using Soylent Green on your lawn. Just like he does. Feeding a lawn with natural materials is pretty easy when you think of it. All you need is some finely screened compost, the minerals to balance your soil, and a subtle source of nitrogen.
The touchy subject of providing a lawn with large doses of nitrogen is not an issue when caring for the lawn naturally. The amounts of nitrogen applied to a lawn treated with natural materials is basically used to replenish lost nitrogen when clippings are not recycled back into the turf with mulching lawn mowing equipment. When clipping are recycled into the lawn mechanically, nitrogen is supplemented in small amounts to assist in the decomposition process and to provide some additional food to soil microbes so that further growth of the lawn is stimulated. Low nitrogen inputs are used to keep the engine running at peak efficiency. The keys to feeding your lawn naturally are to work with the soil and then let the biology in the soil work its magic.
The materials are easy to find and are normally rather abundant. Screening your compost or buying fine-screened compost is easy to come by. Screening your homemade compost is fairly easy to do by constructing a simple screen from a wooden frame and some fine mesh chicken wire. Adding the screened material to your lawn can be done with precision compost spreaders or you can use my method of throwing it all over the lawn in the most haphazard manner possible. I love throwing compost all over the place because it doesn't matter where it falls. No matter where compost falls on soil it does good things so I just chuck it on the lawn and let some of it fall where it may. I guess that's one of the reasons I never have enough compost. I add compost to the lawn in the early to middle part of spring and then again in midsummer. I feed the lawn with chicken manure on the same day so that I'm not doing too much work and jeopardizing my reputation as a lazy gardener. I use chicken manure at similar to those suggested in chapter two. Watering thoroughly after applying these materials get them down where they can do the most good, in the soil. Once a year I winterize the lawn by adding minerals only, this is done in the fall.
Lawns don't have to be growing at warp speed to remain lush and bright green. Quite the opposite is true. The chemical manufacturers want you to continue to buy their products all year so they invent marketing strategies to convince you that your lawn really needs their products if you don't want to be the laughing stock of your neighborhood. Boy have they got it wrong. Smart turf management professionals utilize the cool and the warm season to rebuild the mineral content in their soils and to feed the soil with a little bit of organic matter so that in the spring and summer they don't have mineral deficiencies that can result in numerous disease and pest problems. The organic matter they add to the soil feeds beneficial microbes and larger organisms like earthworms. I add the organic matter earlier in the season, which helps to minimize runoff of water, increase water retention so they don't have to water so often, and improve the physical structure of their soils. One of the best things this organic matter addition can do is to stimulate the larger organisms in your soil such as earthworms to stay in the soil underneath your lawn because food is there. Earthworms also have the added benefit of tunneling around in your soil creating deeper and improved water penetration while feeding on thatch. Thatch is the name given to the dead and decaying remains of the summer's growth. Thatch is a good thing when a lawn is cared for naturally because the beneficial organisms inhabiting your soil actually convert this thatch into plant food that your turf can use when the weather warms up. The whole mechanical dethatching thing that begins in the fall just cracks me up. If the people that spend all that money on removing this valuable material would just feed it to their soils they would have better soils and healthier lawns.
Mineralizing your lawn should only include a mineral supplement and some organic matter as mentioned earlier. Water after application as always. This makes for a great winter meal for all of the good guys that live in the soil beneath your lawn.
By adding these ingredients to your lawn at this time of year you will be truly winterizing your lawn. The other really great thing you won't be doing is contributing to the pollution problem that often occurs when chemical fertilizers run off of poorly maintained soils into the storm drain system resulting in contamination and accelerated bacterial growth in our oceans and fresh water supplies. Just add some minerals and some organic matter and in the spring your lawn will be way ahead of any other in your neighborhood and will remain lush and green throughout the winter. And for those of you with snow on the lawn during this time of year, Bubba can't make fun of the color of the snow can he? This mineral material can help you to grow a weed and disease free lawn that is resistant to pests and stays bright green all year, or until the snow covers it. Eat your heart out Bubba.
Got Questions? Email the Doc at Curly@mill.net Don Trotter's natural gardening columns are printed nationally in environmentally sensitive publications. Check out Don's books Natural Gardening A-Z and The Complete Natural Gardener for lots of other helpful tips to tend your garden without chemicals. Both are available at all bookstores and on line booksellers from Hay House Publishing.