Grass Killer

Sprayed Roundup Thursday on the section of lawn between the street and the sidewalk. I've had a lot of trouble with weeds and a poor grass mix in that area, so I'm going to reseed it after everything dies off. The label says you can replant in 3 days, but it seems to me, I've been told it's better to wait a week. It will depend on the weather, I suppose.

One thing I regret is that I used the hose-sprayer to apply the Roundup instead of a spray canister. You have to set the dial for six ounces per gallon and it came out way faster than I was anticipating. I was half-way done with the section of lawn and realized I'd already used about 3/4ths of the concentrate, so I had to hurry just to get some down on the rest of it. I'll probably end up with a really good kill on the first half and I'll have to spot treat the rest. Oh well. You learn something new every day.

I'll keep you updated on the progress with some pictures in the next couple of days.

Finally got out to mow the lawn for the first time yesterday. It had gotten way to high, so I was definitely cutting off more than I was supposed to. I probably should have bagged it because the blade couldn't mulch it up very well at all.
Anyway, it was a chance to get a good look at how the lawn survived the winter (I'm not one of those people who gets out and rakes, even though I should be one of those people if I want a perfect lawn!). I was pleased to see that there are very few weeds in the turf, but with the weather we've had, there hasn't been a real chance for them to emerge, I suppose. Also, the spots I reseeded last year-despite not growing all that quickly or fully-now seem to have taken hold. It was hard to tell exactly where the new patches were. I guess I used a seed that more closely matched the old grass.

Now the disappointments
I still have far too many spots that are brown (not just where the dog did his business all winter). The thatch is not that thick in the lawn, so that's not the problem, I don't believe. I'll have to do some more investigating.
I'm hoping to get out this week and kill off the section of grass out by the berm. It has always been a sore spot with me how many weeds are in that section and how poorly the grass took here. I'll be killing it off and reseeding. I'll let you know how it goes.

Spring is Here!

Despite last night's snow in Grand Forks, it appears spring is finally here. I have some big plans for the yard, but it's too early to do too much right now.

As we reported on Friday night on WDAZ, it's early for all but the lightest raking on your lawn. Willie Huot from NDSU Extension told our reporter, Christine Boggy, that you can do some raking, but if your yard feels spongy beneath your feet, you could risk damaging your turf.

It is definitely too early to apply fertilizer. If you followed my instructions from last fall, you put down a winterizer treatment that should help when the grass finally starts to grow, but putting down a treatment now would just be throwing away money since grass is not ready to come out of its dormant state yet.

Check back in a few weeks when we start to see the grass really start to green up.

Fall Update

Since we haven't had a hard frost yet in Grand Forks (we've only flirted with 32 degrees a few times overnight), I thought I'd give you an update on the lawn.

I put down weed killer right after Labor Day and there are very few weeds in the lawn now. Steve Sagaser from NDSU Extension says the fall application will also help cut down on weeds in the spring.

The grass is also looking nice and green thanks to all the rain we've had this fall locally. Steve says you can cut back on watering in the early fall to about a 1/2 inch a week, rather than a full inch. I didn't have to water much at all since the last week of August thanks to some timely rain.

While my work this summer paid off in a lot of way, some of the root problems with my lawn remain. I have too many patches of grass that don't match other grass in the lawn. Some of this has to do with me using the wrong seed in the past to re-seed and do patch work. Other problems go back to the original effort to seed the lawn. I definitely will be re-seeding some areas in the spring to try to bring some uniformity to my lawn.

Final TV Report

Here's the final television Turf Tips report. It's a look back at how far my lawn has come from May to now. I realize it's a bit of an unfair comparison to show video from May when the grass was just waking from its winter slumber, but I really have noticed a lot of improvement from the start of the growing season to today.

That doesn't mean I'm entirely satisfied. I came up short of my goal of perfection, but I think that's a little unrealistic when you have two kids who like to play soccer in the backyard and a dog that likes to treat the whole yard as its bathroom. The front yard actually looks pretty good, which you'll see in the last video in this story.

I think the three things that did the most good in turning my lawn around were aerating, proper mowing and proper watering. I had never aerated my lawn in the ten years I've lived in my home and I've learned you should do it every two years. Also, I was cutting my lawn too short most of the time (Steve says 2 1/2 inches at the minimum; a little higher than that is better) and I was not getting an inch of water on my lawn every week which I now know is the right amount.

While this was the last televised tip, I do plan to continue updating the blog until the first frost. Steve tells me that Kentucky Bluegrass will actually continue to grow for a while after the first frost. I'll update soon on how much you should be watering during this early fall period.

BTW, thanks to Steve Sagaser with NDSU Extension for all his help this summer. And also thanks to Patrick Wynne, WDAZ News photographer, who worked every week with me on this project.

Going Green: Organic Lawn Care

This is a tough topic to tackle in a 90 second television news story, so it's nice to have this blog to get deeper into the topic. The Environmental Protection Agency says 78 million U.S. homes use lawn and garden pesticides. Also, suburban lawns and gardens receive more pesticides per acre than agriculture fields. Add in the high level of emissions given off by lawn care equipment like mowers and weed trimmers and lawn care is pretty hard on the environment.

But there are ways you can cut back or eliminate chemical use if you are willing to lower your standards a bit or are willing to work a little harder at lawn care. Here's today's video Turf Tip:

Steve also talked about organic fertilizers; which I didn't get a chance to include in my WDAZ News @ 5 segment. I wasn't sure if organic fertilizer meant spreading manure on your yard (which I'm sure would not go over well in my neighborhood!). Here's his answer:

I'm really facinated by the story of corn gluten; an organic herbicide that was discovered pretty much by accident by an Iowa State University researcher. Here's a link to the ISU webpage that documents the discovery and the research involving corn gluten.

And here are a number of links to websites that advocate organic lawn care and provide tips:

Natural Lawn Care

Beyond Pesticides Group

Environmental Protection Agency Lawn and Garden Page

Natural Resources Conservation Service


So will I try to eliminate pesticide use as part of my lawn care system? There's some pretty scary information out there about these chemicals being carcinogens and sticking around and being found in trace amounts inside of homes. I am pretty vigilant about following label directions and keeping the kids and the dog off the lawn for a day after I spray. I also follow the recommendations found in this University of Wisconsin Extension pamphlet on using nitrogen fertilizers. A number of websites also warn against the use of weed and feed products that combine both herbicide and fertilizers. While I didn't use such a product this year, I have in the past. They make a good point that it's overkill to do both at the same time. I also found advice to spot spray for weeds instead of covering your whole lawn with a hose-sprayer application since you likely don't have weeds on every inch of your lawn. Of course with a pre-emergent in the spring, you can't see the weeds yet, so you want to get it down everywhere.

So while I'm not quite ready to give up chemical and fertilizer use entirely, researching this topic has piqued my curiosity and I may try testing some of these methods like using corn gluten as a pre-emergent herbicide. If there's not too much of a drop-off in results and it's not cost-prohibitive, I'm willing to do my part to go green while trying to achieve a green lawn.

What do you think? Are you concerned about pesticide use in lawns? Leave a comment below.

Icing on the Cake

Here's this week's Turf Tip in which I offer a few ways to spruce up your lawn to make it look like you hire a professional. I cover three topics: edging, painting and dealing with a fence.

My favorite part of the story is the grass paint. I've never used again, but thought it would be fun to test it as part of a Turf Tips shoot. It actually works pretty well, but it's a really dark green, so it stands out a bit, but not as much as the brown spots left behind by my dog. As I mention in the video, you can buy gallons of paint to do your whole yard. It's pretty costly, but if you are hosting an outdoor wedding or party and want things to look perfect, you can actually paint your grass green. Pretty cool!

As far as edging goes; I think it really does make a yard look nice. I have an attachment to my weed trimmer that converts it to an edger. It's kind of hard to control so sometimes my line is not so straight! Even so, it looks good when it's done. I really should do it more often. You can reclaim several inches of driveway if you've let it go too long.

I'm really debating right now whether to go after some parts of my lawn with Roundup and re-seed before the first frost. I might just wait until spring and be happy with where I'm at.