Recently in Lawn Category

A lot of people ask me if I’m strictly an organic gardener. Well, I guess in the strictest sense, I’d have to say no to that. I occasionally have to resort to using glyphosate (better known as Roundup) to knock out stands of poison ivy. Since I’m highly allergic to it, I can’t get near the stuff without breaking out. And sometimes, I’ll even use a little Miracle-gro in my containers when they need a quick shot of soluble fertilizer.

On the other hand, my use of man-made, synthetic chemicals are few and far between. Given the choice I prefer to use fertilizer and pest controls that are organic or natural first. Why do I say this? Because generally, they are kinder to the earth as they are manufactured (if even applicable) and once they are applied to our lawns and gardens.

Synthetic fertilizers are designed to be water-soluble. Contact with water releases the chemical and what isn’t absorbed by the plant (which is most of it), continues to move off target, either as storm water runoff, or through the soil into underground aquifers. Either way, these chemicals can wreak havoc in watersheds, promoting the growth of algae and depriving other amphibious creatures life-giving oxygen and disrupting delicate ecosystems. Organic or natural fertilizers on the other hand must be broken down in the environment first before they are in a form that can be taken up by plant roots. Accordingly, they are slower acting and tend to bind or stay where they’re put, at least much longer than soluble products. And organic / natural products are not manufactured with salts which can really throw off soil pH and disturb the living soil food web.

The very premise of organic gardening is to establish a healthy eco-system, above and below ground. Doing anything to disturb that is counter-productive to organic gardening. So what about tilling? It doesn’t even involve chemicals and would certainly be considered a natural or organic form of cultivation. But it greatly disturbs the soil structure and contrary to popular belief, should be avoided if your goal is to build healthy soil.

Pesticides are the biggest problem in my mind and the major reason why I’m a strong advocate of natural over synthetic choices when it comes to control. But even here, many natural methods are non-selective—my biggest beef with synthetic chemicals. Which is why I don’t spray at all if possible. Instead, I let nature take its course. It does much better than me at dealing with the pests in my garden. Of all the bugs, only about three percent are even considered pests (the ones that actually damage your plants). So why then would you spray any non-selective chemical on your garden when 97 percent are either beneficial or at worst, neutral? You shouldn’t!

But I do like knowing that organic controls are far more susceptible to breaking down quickly in the environment when exposed to sunlight. And I certainly appreciate the biological controls such as B.t and Milky spore that are very pest specific and harmless to other creatures in the garden.

The bottom line though to organic and non-organic, synthetic controls is the fact that no matter what you are using, it should be applied with great restraint, discretion and with the wisdom of knowing how, when and where to apply it. If you have to resort to any chemical, keeping it on target is a major factor in minimizing the environmental impact.

Q: How do I properly use my new edger to edge a planting bed?

Somewhere in his repertoire, Rodney Dangerfield surely had some pretty good material on weeds. Talking about getting no respect! After all, when you consider how much they put up with and still look good, how can you not at least admire their tenacity? If we could only learn to love weeds for what they are, our gardening lives would be a lot easier and there would be a lot less use of chemicals out there too!

In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that some weeds were actually promoted as a good thing. Take clover for example. Ironically, until a few decades ago, grass seed came with clover mixed in because of its many desirable traits, including the ability of the roots to fix nitrogen in the soil. That gave the clover and the grass around it the nutrients they needed to green up naturally.

Unfortunately, clover was reclassified from lawn-worthy to weed when it could not be selectively excluded when herbicides were applied to grass.  Now, clover is considered an undesirable thug, even though its flowers are a favorite of pollinating bees, stays green all year, provides valuable nitrogen and organic material to the soil, and its hardiness is sufficient to crowd out more detrimental lawn weeds. But instead of growing it, we’re now supposed to kill it.  Did the clover change?  No, we did.

Now don’t get the idea that I love weeds. I don’t. But I will say my tolerance for some, like clover, is much greater than in years past. These days, my lawn isn’t weed free any more. Part of the reason I’m more tolerant now is due to my increased awareness of the beneficial aspects some weeds play in promoting biodiversity, combined with my commitment to use chemicals only as a last resort. And frankly with weeds, there are several options for control before chemicals ever become necessary.

You might find this odd but I don’t mind pulling weeds. It’s the ultimate selective and eco-friendly option available, and there’s no greater way to work out some frustration then by going out after a soaking rain and pulling up those suckers intact! Talk about instant gratification. And my favorite weeds to pull up…we’ll that would be anything with a taproot, such as dandelion or thistle. The reason being, if you don’t get the entire root, it’s coming back, just as certain as death and taxes.

Yet I have to admit, even after a soaking rain, getting every bit of that taproot is the exception to the rule. That’s part of what makes weeds like this so darn tough. And that’s when other options become necessary for complete extraction. There are a number of great tools on the market for this and Fiskars has my favorite; The Extended Reach Weeder. It essentially plucks the weed and roots from the ground while I operate this lightweight device from a standing position. There’s even an ejection feature that clears the weed from the tool and allows me to cover a lot of ground in record time. And these days, that’s the bonus. Although I don’t mind pulling weeds once in a while, I don’t want to spend all day doing it. I’m sure you’d agree!
JL