Make Every Drop Count!

Effective October 2001, The City Of Dallas has new watering restrictions that state:

• It is an offense to water a landscape in a manner that wastes water or causes runoff.
• Do not cause water to fall on sidewalks, driveways or areas that are not lawns or landscapes.
• It is an offense to operate an irrigation system that has broken or missing sprinkler heads or one that is poorly maintained and leads to water waste.
• Do not water or irrigate your landscape during any form of precipitation.

Effective June 1, 2002: No lawn watering between 10:ooam and 6:00 pm through September 30 of any year.

For more information from the city of Dallas Water Utilities call 214-670-3155.

Woodmakers Talk of Ending Use of Arsenic

by Julie Hauserman, Times Staff Writer
published January 23, 2002
© St. Petersburg Times

TALLAHASSEE—The makers of arsenic-treated lumber, one of the most popular building materials in America, have been meeting privately with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to discuss phasing out their controversial product.

"It is our understanding that the industry is proposing to voluntarily stop using the arsenic treating process, but at this point we don't know details," said Dan McLaughlin, spokesman for Sen. Nelson. "We've been told the industry is offering to go to an alternative process."

Spokesmen for the EPA and for wood manufacturers confirmed Tuesday that talks are going on, but would not discuss specifics.

The wood-treaters now use a pesticide called chromated copper arsenate, or CCA. Arsenic, a poison that can cause cancer, is leaking from the wood into back yards and playground soils. Safer chemical compounds -- ones that don't contain arsenic -- can protect the wood from bugs and weather.

A nationwide phase out would be significant. Pressure-treated lumber is a $4-billion annual industry in the United States, and bug-filled Florida is the nation's biggest market.

Nelson, a Florida Democrat, has been pushing the EPA to tell people whether arsenic-treated lumber is safe. Some wooden playgrounds in Florida were shut down during the past year, when tests done for the St. Petersburg Times revealed that arsenic is leaking into playground soil. Children also can get arsenic on their hands by touching the wood. There is little scientific consensus, however, on how much risk the arsenic poses to children.

Also on Tuesday, one of the nation's leading wooden playground design firms, Leathers & Associates, said it will no longer build playgrounds from arsenic-treated wood. Instead, the firm will use wood infused with either a boron compound or a compound called ACQ.

Leathers & Associates has helped volunteers build some 1,600 playgrounds around the United States, including at least five in west-central Florida.

In March, the Times commissioned soil tests at all five playgrounds and found arsenic at levels higher than the state allows when it requires polluters to clean up neighborhoods.

The fanciful Leathers playgrounds are designed by children and built by thousands of community volunteers. Leathers & Associates builds about 70 to 80 playgrounds around the country each year. Since 1971, it has built 70 in Florida, including Al Lopez Park in Tampa, Tom Varn Park in Brooksville, Creative Community Playground in Crystal River, Sims Park in New Port Richey and Discovery Playground in Tarpon Springs.

Crews are now removing arsenic-laced soil from Lopez Park. Discovery Playground remains closed while local officials await guidance from the EPA.

Congress has given the EPA a Feb. 15 deadline to produce a report on arsenic-treated wood. But in the meantime, consumer pressure and pending lawsuits are having an impact. After being sued by a California public-interest law firm called the Center for Environmental Health, five national playground manufacturers have agreed to switch to arsenic-free wood.

Leathers & Associates wasn't facing any lawsuits, said president Marc Leathers. In fact, the company has insisted that arsenic-treated lumber is safe, even after tests revealed elevated levels of arsenic in the five west-central Florida playgrounds. Tuesday, he said the switch "is driven by demand from the public."

"Instead of waiting for the EPA, we looked at all the information and we think it's a better alternative for our clients. They won't have all this controversy," Leathers said.

The EPA isn't the only entity taking a look at arsenic-treated lumber. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is reviewing a petition from environmentalists to ban the wood. In Florida, the state parks are now using arsenic-free wood on all new projects.

Nationally, a class-action lawsuit accuses Lowe's, Home Depot and the wood-treatment industry of negligence for failing to let people know that the wood contains a pesticide that leaks out. Some people have settled or filed lawsuits alleging that they were poisoned when working with the wood.

Another concern: Pressure-treated lumber has enough toxic chemicals in it to rank as a hazardous waste. But the industry got a special exemption when Ronald Reagan was president. Now, Florida officials are worried that old wood, discarded in unlined dumps, might leak arsenic into groundwater.

Florida officials have asked the EPA to reconsider that exemption from hazardous waste rules. At the EPA, a top official confirmed Tuesday that talks are ongoing between the agency and the wood-treatment industry. But he would not say whether the wood-treaters have proposed a phase out.

Crape Myrtle Alert!

There is no real reason to trim Crape Myrtles unless they have branches that can cause physical or bodily harm. Crape Myrtles will do well left alone and will have a naturally beautiful tree form if misguided pruners are kept away from them.

If you feel that interior branches of the tree are too crowded and impede air circulation or if branches are rubbing each other, prune. Make sure that you prune branches no thicker than the size of a pencil and do not top the tree as so many people have. Topping causes a very ugly crowning effect that is very disfiguring for what could be a beautiful tree.

If the Crape Myrtle was planted too near a foundation and has started to grow awkwardly away from the house, consider transplanting the tree rather than prune it into ugly stubs.

The Lawn

If the soil is not freezing, all or some of the following chores can be done:

• Apply an all-organic fertilizer such as Green Sense 6-2-4 or Green Sense 5-2-4. By applying the fertilizer now there will be plenty of time for the product to break down into to a form that is available to the plant.
• Apply Green Sense Lawn & Garden Microbial Treatment. These microbes will go in to the soil and digest any carbon matter including the fertilizer that you may have just applied. At the same time they will make thousands of small tunnels that will help loosen soil compaction. Loose soils will help improve water percolation and root growth.
• Beneficial Nematodes help decrease your insect population by attacking and destroying larvae and adult insects including roaches, fire ants, grubs, squash borers and more. BN should be applied in all soils including vegetable gardens. More information on Nematodes.

Trees

Take advantage of the cold weather and prune your trees. Now is a great time to prune Live Oaks and Red Oaks.

If you are pruning due to wind damage that has left uneven or jagged breaks or just pruning for any reason, always go back to a branch crotch or back to the trunk of the tree. Look for the branch collar and try to stay above that.

Before pruning step back and look at the tree from a distance:

Look for dead branches. Even if the trees are bare, you can tell the difference by looking at the colors on the bark. Look for branches that have fallen or broken and are resting on another branch. Normally this will happen on fast growing trees like cottonwoods and willows, but I have seen it happen on pecans, too.

If you have mulberries and Bradford Pears look for grouping of large branches that form at one spot. The combined weight of theses branches can weaken the joint and cause this area to break.

Let’s say you just moved into a new house and the trees have been topped. Look for a grouping of new growth branches that may look like a crown. Pick the dominant branch from this area of sprouting and remove the rest.

Or somebody removed all the lower branches of the tree so that the house would be more visible from the street. Some realtor suggested lifting the branches to show the house better. Now, you may have sprouting all along the trunk of the tree. Do not remove these immediately, see which ones will start to form branches and let them grow back.

Pruning live branches rarely benefits the tree, but can reduce dangerous situations.

Removing dead or broken branches can improve the health of the tree.

Do not use pruning paint. When you apply a pruning paint, the natural flow of the tissue can be decreased or blocked and will not permit natural disease resistance from the tree.

You can apply Green Sense Tree Goop to fresh cuts or wounds on trees. The ingredients in Tree Goop are manure, rock phosphate and diatomaceous earth and may aid healing, as well as protect the exposed tissue from insects and scalding sun.

Pruning Fruit Trees

by Don Trotter

A correct pruning cut removes the branch just outside of the collar. The collar is formed from good tissue and will roll over the wound and seal off the interior of the tree from insects and airborne diseases.

Incorrect pruning cuts that leave branch and leader stubs also start disease and defect problems. Do not leave stubs. Look for the collar.

When pruning deciduous fruit trees it is always helpful to remember three steps to a good basic pruning job.

1. Eliminate all dead or diseased wood.
2. Eliminate crossing or touching branches in favor of stronger growth if possible.
3. Keep the center of the tree clear of branches for good air circulation.

These three steps will assure you of a pruning job that keeps your fruit to the outside of the tree for easy picking, keeps the center of the tree open for air circulation that will reduce pest and disease problems, and keep the tree tidy and free of decaying wood that serves no purpose. Some specific information regarding the most often grown fruit trees is as follows and speaks of the age of "fruiting" wood. For example, wood that was formed during last year's growing season will be considered second year wood and wood that was formed two seasons ago is referred to as third year wood. Wood that will be formed during the growing season coming will be call first year wood.

Apples and pears; Most fruit is formed on second and third year wood. Apples and pears produce a type of fruiting wood called a spur. Spurs are where a lot of fruit can be produced, they look exactly like stunted branchlets and should be saved unless dead or in a spot where they conflict (cross) with other growth. Apples and pears also produce fruit along the middle section of second year wood. Apples and pears do best when pruning is limited to cleaning and shaping. No more than 25% of the previous year' growth should be removed to maximize fruit production.

Apricot, Peach. Plum, Nectarine; Due to the brevity of this column, I must group these trees together. Most of the fruit for all of these fruit varieties is formed on second and third year wood. Plums can also form spurs like Apples and this growth formation should be saved whenever possible. Crossing branches should always be eliminated and the long whip-like growth that was formed last year on some branches can be reduced up to 60%. Apricots also produce these whips and they can be treated similarly. Most of the fruit is produced in the middle third of the growth that was formed last season (second year wood). All precaution should be taken to preserve this wood whenever possible. Having an open center is very important to all of these varieties of trees to reduce the possibility of disease and pest infestations. It is always a good thing to apply a dormant spray immediately after pruning to seal and disinfect open cuts in the tree before next year's growth begins. My favorite pruning sealer is good old Elmer's white glue. Rub it or brush it on the open cuts in your tree to seal out bad guys.

Pruning your fruit trees is not nearly as daunting a task as many like to make it. Simply cleaning your tree of dead wood, elimination of crossing branches, and shaping your tree is often enough for residential fruit trees so they maintain their shape and attractiveness in the garden. I'll see you in the Garden!

Got Questions? Email the Doc. Don Trotter's natural gardening columns appear nationally in environmentally sensitive publications. Check out Don's books "The Complete Natural Gardener" and "Natural Gardening A-Z" at your local bookstore or any online bookseller for more helpful gardening tips. Both books are from Hay House Publishing.

Indoor Pest Control

It has been awhile since we have talked about uninvited houseguests, and because my darling wife Sandra rudely awakened me the other night, I knew it was time to re-inspect the house for unwanted guests.

Of course, I was in a deep sleep when Sandra woke me up, but I immediately hear a scratching noise coming from the attic at the edge of the west wall. I get up, bang on the wall, and sure enough the noise stops…. Until the next night when I am awakened again by: Scratch, scratch. The creature is back. But, it is in a different area. By now Sandra is awake and acting all scared and wimpy, demanding that I do something to stop this, this, whatever it is before it makes its way into the house.

I decided to get my coat and go outside to see if I could spot where “this, this, whatever it is” went into the attic. I could still hear the scratching, but as hard as I looked I could not see any openings where “this, this thing” got in.

When I came home from work that evening I had Victor stay outside and look for anything coming across the roof or down the side of the house while I went up into the attic to put out some Red Fox Urine. I turned the attic light off and stood in the dark trying to see shining eyes as the animal ran the attic. I waited for 5 minutes, nothing.

I went outside and asked Victor if he saw something? No, was his answer.

I got my ladder and put it up next to the house against the gutter. As I set it against the gutter it banged harder than I had anticipated, and sure enough- out ran a squirrel. It just so happens that the gutter in that area runs below another pitch of the roof protecting it from the elements. In the gutter I found an accumulation of leaves and twigs the squirrel had used to make a nest. I started to remove the debris but decided to put some Red Fox Urine there just to see if it would keep the rodent away. Sure enough, for the next week we did not hear from it again so I decided to remove the nest.

At about the same time, we were being visited by the squirrel, Sandra also noticed a roach in the kitchen, a reminder that all things good or evil or just plain disgusting must protect themselves from the cold.

After stepping on the poor creature, I decided to reapply Niban FG. Niban is an insecticide that uses corn meal as bait to attract ants, crickets, cockroaches, and silverfish. Once they feed on this product, the other ingredient, boric acid, kills them. One little snuffer does my house 3 times, but this time I did treat a little more carefully than other times.

I removed everything from under the sinks in the kitchen, bathrooms and laundry room. I pulled the refrigerator out of its enclosure, vacuumed the dust off of the coils and cleaned dust bunnies from the floor. I then applied Niban and a little bit of Green Sense Diatomaceous Earth, the skeletal remains of microscopic organisms with razor sharp edges that scratch the exoskeletons of insects, causing them to die.

I repeated this in the laundry room under the washer and dryer.

I applied Niban at the baseboards and around the doors and windows. I opened each window and puffed the tracks with the Niban and D.E. and if I still had sliding glass doors I would have applied it to those tracks too.

I walked around the house to see if the cooper mesh called Stuf-fit was still in the weep holes at the first layer of bricks and other voids in the exterior walls of the house.

None of the copper mesh had moved out of the openings and upon further investigation I noticed that the caulking around the windows was still firmly in place.

However, I did notice that under our newly installed French door there was an area of seal was missing and I could feel some warm air leaving the house through the gap.

I called the individual who installed the door and asked him to replace the seal, which he did. Not only did he help me keep the insects out, but also keep my hot air in.

Hey, hey! Keep that thought to yourself.

Humus? Compost?

Every day I have people come in or call to ask about humus: Why is it that they can go to one of those large stores that carry everything and buy organic humus for two dollars a bag and call a nursery and get compost for sometimes three times as much?

We all know that most organic matter added to the soils can benefit plant growth and fruit production. However, not all commercially sold organic matter is the same.

One thing that is certain; everything breaks down to humus. Compost has humus in it. However, there are still particles in compost that are recognizable. Compost has organic matter that still has lots of organisms, and compost prepared properly will contain huge numbers of organisms beneficial to the growth of plants.

Humus is the resulting product of completely broken down compost. Humus is a term that requires a finished, composted material, and by definition is mature and stable. That means that there is no more organic matter in humus, or humus has no living component.

With time everything that falls to the ground or dies on the soil will breakdown or decompose, and eventually that material will become a dark colored unrecognizable material called humus.

Now, many years have passed and the forest has been cleared out for farm use. The farmer depletes the organic matter and no longer has the ability to produce even the simplest grasses for foraging, so the farmer applies tons and tons of commercial fertilizers, some even containing herbicides and fungicides. For a while he is happy and has increased production, so he applies more and more fertilizers until one day production stops again and he decides to move to another piece of land.

But what happens to the first property he had? Well, it just so happens that there are people out there who want to mine the property for its topsoil and humus, which is usually just below the root line of the plants. It is cheap to extract and with the new niche created by so-called “tree huggers”, they call it organic humus.

It is true, just like there is good and bad compost, there is also good and bad humus.

Some compost contains weeds and pathogens, but if prepared properly there will be many benefits to that compost. Name recognition means a lot in compost preparation; there are now companies that have built an excellent reputation for their composting skills and knowledge. But, do they call it organic compost? No. A reputable compost maker has left organic matter in his product that will feed beneficial organisims and is rich in nutrients.

So why do some mega-stores sell humus and call it organic humus when many times the organic matter has actually been used up, and weed seeds and other non-desirable chemicals are present? Why don’t they just sell it as dirt or topsoil? Profit!

The mega-stores are taking advantage of the organic enthusiast by putting the word organic on a product that, not only has been depleted of nutrients, but may also contain remnants of chemical agricultural products.

We listen to people from Rodale, Acres and of course, Howard Garrett who tell us the best way to turn any soil into a productive one is by using rich organic matter. Some people see the words organic humus and think, “this must be rich.” They spend lots of money and time working this organic product into the soil without realizing the organic decay of once living organisms must be completed in order to become humus.

Humus, of course does have its place in the soil and should be sold, but in less confusing ways. Take out the organic and leave the word humus.

Humus can be beneficial when mixed with sandy soils. Sandy soils consist of large particles that have plenty of air space and can dry out quickly. Nutrients leach out quickly from sandy soils usually before the plants get the nutrients. Humus incorporated into sandy soils helps hold moisture and nutrients.

Clay soil, as most of you know, are thick and consist of very small particles with very little air space that can hold water for long periods causing root rot and other diseases. By adding humus, clay soils will start to separate and drain more quickly.