Tag Archives: yard

Growing a (mostly) weed free lawn in suburbia

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So you want to have a weed free lawn that’s still safe for the kids and puppy. It is possible, but we may need to redefine our expectations of “weed free.”

Maintaining a monoculture of anything is difficult, and grass is no exception. Consider farms that are hundreds of acres of just one crop and the efforts they go to maintain it. In New England, the lawn grasses we grow are not native, which means they require care. To some people and companies that means significant care in the forms of water, soil pH adjustment (lime), nutrients (compost and fertilizer), herbicides, mowing, aeration and more.

All of this makes planting native species that require little to no care very attractive. However, most of us still want some “patch of green” to call our own for a variety of reasons. That’s doable, without too much work, but accept that weeds will appear and dealing with a few is a worthwhile trade off for Fido and the kids.

So let’s talk about growing a weed-less lawn in suburbia.

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Everybody is dethatching for all the wrong reasons

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No, not that thatch. By Ossewa [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Every lawn service seemed to be going full steam dethatching all their customer’s lawns this week, but why, and why are people paying for the service?

Studies from turf divisions of top-rated ag schools (as well as turf companies) agree on a few key points: Continue reading →

Mow, don’t rake

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What would you say if I told you that the world’s leading sellers of lawn fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides suggest mowing leaves into your lawn as a way to improve nutrition, add organic material and promote disease resistance?

You can also use a power mower to collect leaves quickly and efficiently, which also reduces them to a size good for the compost or simply getting more per lawn bag.

Because, science: https://ag.umass.edu/…/yard-waste-management-in-massachuset…

Leaf mulching: When there is only a moderate amount of leaves on the ground a mower can be used to mulch them into the turf. Research at Purdue University demonstrated that mulching maple leaves into the turf does not have any detrimental effect on the soil or turf and usually results in improvement of soil structure. The research also showed that mulching maple leaves does not increase thatch and disease on turf and has no effect on soil pH and nutrient availability. Research at Michigan State University suggests that leaf mulching can also reduce dandelion population on turf. The research showed that mulched red and sugar maple leaves initially reduced dandelion populations on very low maintenance and moderately maintained (fertilized and properly mown but not irrigated) lawns under some conditions. The mulched leaves provided some pre-emergence dandelion control in the first year but did not provide any post-emergence control or sustained effects once dandelions had become established.

Bayer: http://bit.ly/2e9OFIN

You can skip raking completely by mowing over leaves and chopping them into small pieces.

You also can allow leaf pieces to decompose in place on the lawn. To do this, chop leaves into dime-size pieces. Depending on how large leaves are and how deep the layer is, you may need to mow over them several times to chop them small enough. After mowing, you should see roughly 50 percent of the grass through the leaf pieces. The more grass you see, the more quickly those leaf pieces will decompose.

As the leaf bits settle onto soil between grass blades, microbes start the process of decomposition. Providing a nitrogen source, like that found in a winterizer or fall-timed lawn fertilizer, will help soil microbes break down leaves faster. Allowing leaves to decompose in place ultimately enhances the soil beneath your lawn, adding organic matter, which leads to a healthier, thicker lawn.

Scotts: http://bit.ly/2e9JLLR

Take the grass catcher off your mower and mow over the leaves on your lawn. You want to reduce your leaf clutter to dime-size pieces. You’ll know you’re done when about half an inch of grass can be seen through the mulched leaf layer. Once the leaf bits settle in, microbes and worms get to work recycling them. Any kind of rotary-action mower will do the job, and any kind of leaves can be chopped up. With several passes of your mower, you can mulch up to 18 inches of leaf clutter.

Maple leaves have fallen and we’re all going to live

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Maple Tar Spot. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

This is a follow up to the recent post “maple leaves falling and we’re all going to die.”

Turns out, stories of our imminent death may have been premature. I was able to contact Professor George Hudler of Cornell for more information, and he’s got more good news. Continue reading →

Maple leaves are falling and we’re all going to die

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Maple Tar Spot infected leaf. Image used with these permissions: Use:Saforrest, Black tar spot on sugar maple, CC BY-SA 3.0

I’ve received a lot of questions about the diseased Maple leaves falling early and whether they’re safe to compost.

I’m terrible at this whole “don’t give an answer right away in order to drag readers along” so here’s the short answer:

If you hot compost, you can compost them.
If not, send the leaves away.

More explanation and information after the jump. Continue reading →

How many leaves do I need?

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People often ask how many leaves they should save for their compost pile. It’s the right question to ask, because when making compost if you strike the correct balance of leaves and nitrogen-rich food scraps, you’ll get rich, light, sweet-smelling compost. Get it wrong and your compost may stink terribly or be very slow to decompose.

For each pail of food (or grass)

For each container of food scraps or coffee grounds.

Add twice as many leaves by volume.

Add twice as many leaves by volume.

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, how many leaves do you need to stockpile to make compost?

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