Procrastination is generally not a good thing, but when it comes to your lawn in the summertime, a little bit can be a good thing. So says the turf grass specialists at Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences.
Summer lawn care and maintenance knowledge will make the difference between a lush, healthy law – just begging to be tip-toed through with bare feet – and a scraggly brown one. Grasses usually go into a state of semi-dormancy and are vulnerable to disturbance.
There are a number of things to look at with summer lawn care:
Fertilizer –
Fertilizing is one of the best lawn maintenance choices you can make. Misusing it will make things turn really ugly, really fast. Using a fertilizer that is higher in nitrogen may be a good thing in the fall or the spring, but in the summer, when the only cooler place is on the sun, you can burn the daylights out of your lawn. Go for a slow-release fertilizer with lower nitrogen for this time of the year and carefully follow the instructions for use. You might even want to forgo fertilizing at all until the season starts to cool off and head into fall.
Water –
One of the most common issues seen with summer lawn care is NOT ENOUGH WATER. You may be watering as you normally do, but remember – it’s summer – water evaporates much more quickly than other times of the year. Water your lawn until the moisture has penetrated the soil to around six inches. Also, consider increasing the number of times per week you turn on the sprinklers. Whatever you do, don’t let your lawn turn brown and then water them back to a green condition. This depletes energy reserves and stresses out the plants. A wise garden writer said in print recently, “Yes, grasses are plants, too.” Keep in mind that they need the same care as other plants in your garden. Water as early in the day as possible.
Yard Toys –
My kids bugged and bugged for a Slip N Slide. While I am generally not the mom to deny her kids summer fun – and I didn’t – I am a bit of a psycho (hey, now!) about them not leaving their stuff all over the lawn. That Slip N Slide (or tarp or whatever they’re covering your lawn with) will get smothered by that hot plastic. Of course, if you’re setting up a pool, it’s just not practical to tear it down and set it up. I’ve given instructions for repairing those spots in the past and may do so again in the fall, but the other stuff? Don’t leave that tarp or Slip N Slide laying around if the kidlets aren’t using them. No reason to damage your lawn when you’re doing all this work to keep it lush.
Mowing –
Mowing height adjustment is probably the most important practice in preparation for hot weather. Don’t mow ANY LOWER than three inches, even a little longer wouldn’t hurt. Lawns allowed to exist at this higher level will usually develop deeper roots and dry out more slowly than closely mowed grass. As the summer gets hotter and drier, the growth of your lawn should slow somewhat.
Other lawn care practices –
Avoid seeding, thatch control and the application of weed killers (including “weed and feed” if you use that type of product) until later in the season. September is a much better time for those things.
Mower Maintenance –
If you own your own mower, there are a few things you should do to take care of and insure the life of your mower. After each mowing, wait until the engine cools and then hose off the clippings and grass debris that may be clinging to the underside of the mower deck. Be sure to make sure that you have disconnected the spark plug cable prior to cleaning. Reconnect it afterwards.
It’s a good idea to sharpen, or have sharpened, the blades of your mower once a month or every six weeks. If you mow more than 4 times a month or happen to run over lots of rocks and debris, definitely once a month. Sharp mower blades are perhaps the one most important thing to focus on with your mower. Aside from the damage that dull blades will cause on your lawn, you could use up to 20% more fuel and you could spend a lot more time mowing that would ordinarily be required with sharp blades.
Always remember when reinstalling your blades that the sharp cutting edges of the blade should be facing down, not up! Most mulching blades are twisted, so make sure that the sharp end is facing toward the ground.
At the end of the season, don’t just put your mower away – prepare it first. Drain the fuel. Be sure to disconnect your spark plug prior to draining. By draining the fuel from your mower, you are preventing the remaining fuel from aging and potentially going bad inside your mower engine and carburetor.
Once the fuel has been drained, reconnect the spark plug wire and run the engine until it burns all the remaining fuel and runs out of gas.
Most mowers have instructions for putting your mower up for the season. If you still have the manual, follow those instructions.
Once spring rolls around again, bring your mower out of hibernation. If you’re not mechanically inclined, drag that mower to a shop to have it serviced.
If you’re up to doing this on your own, here are the few things you should do to get your mower ready for the season
Change the oil in the mower. If your mower has a two-stroke engine, oil is already mixed into the fuel and you can skip this step. Smaller, gas powered four-stroke engines will use 30 weight oil. Check the owner’s manual.
Replace the spark plug. These can fowl out and should be replaced at least once a year.
If your mower has a fuel filter, this should be replaced as well.
Replace the air filter. Your motor will need to breathe and if you kick up a lot of dust and debris while mowing, your filter could be choking your engine and it won’t function properly.
If there are issues with the way in which your mower runs, you may want to consider taking it in to a service shop.
With good cultural practices and mower maintenance, lawn care – all the way around – can be easily accomplished and extremely rewarding. Good luck through the rest of the summer and don’t forget to take care of yourself in this heat. Wear a hat and some sunscreen and be sure to drink lots of water if you’re going to be out in this heat for any length of time.
26 July 2009
11 July 2009
Summer Mish Mash
I’ve got a little bit of this and a little bit of that to talk about.
I’m hearing a lot about moles and gophers this year. A lot. I even have my own not insignificant issues with moles. I’ve got mole plant. I’ve got castor bean plant. But the best thing I’ve found for moles? A cat. My family presented me with a large, orange and white tom cat, rescued from the Siskiyou Human Society (they work with Petsmart). He’s a fabulous cat. Loves the kids, absolutely LOVES the dog. Last night, I went on the hunt for the cat and found him sitting quietly in the side yard, about 18 inches from a mole hole in action. Watching him, I could tell that he could sense, or perhaps hear, the varmints under the ground. While he didn’t nab himself a mole last night, I know that it’s on his agenda and that nasty, large mole will be dispatched in short order shortly. Got moles? Rescue a cat.
I’m also hearing a lot about a variety of mysterious pests this year. Folks finding plants with lacified leaves and no clue as to what’s doing it. Today, we’re a lot more aware of the need to protect our environment and keep the use of poisons to a minimum. The days of flinging about clouds of dust and spraying everything that moves are on the way out. Organic and biological controls are the wave we are riding right now, and the wave we’ll continue to ride in the future.
Most garden pests have natural predators, but we don’t always have them waiting in our gardens for aphids to show up. I have yet to see a praying mantis hanging about, rubbing her front claws together, saying, “Oh boy, I can’t wait for the squash bugs to hatch!” There are things we can do to draw them into our landscape, but – more often than not – its mail order that puts the beneficial insects and nematodes where we need them. Ladybug Indoor Gardens in Jacksonville can provide pest identification, excellent advice and is an outlet for every kind of beneficial insect that would help you out with your pest problems. Diatomaceous earth will help with a myriad of garden pests, but you want the kind NOT meant for pool filters. Tiny fossils in the diatomaceous earth put minute scratches in the exoskeletons of the pest that walk over it and they wind up dehydrating. Think about a trip to Ladybug Gardens for perhaps no other reason than education. They’re really nice there, as well.
Let’s talk about nuts. I don’t mean your crazy friends, people from California or certain family members. I’m talking about hazel nuts, cashews, almonds and the kind. Little nuts. Most nut trees are too large to grow more than maybe one or two in the home orchard.
The dwarf Siberian pine bears edible pine nuts and grows to only around 9 feet tall. Some hazelnuts are actually more of a bush and work for a crackerjack hedge. There are hybrid nut trees that will produce in as little as 3 years, whereas the larger walnuts and butternuts can take up to ten years to bear fruit. The purple leaf filbert is a smaller hedge bush and you would need two of these. Purple leaf filberts grow to 8 feet or so.
Almonds are a stone fruit like peaches, only you eat the nut. When selecting an almond variety, be sure to either choose a self-pollinator or plant two trees. You will also have to encourage honey bees to come to your yard and orchard if you’re going the cross-pollination route. If you want honey bees to frequent you yard and orchard, stay away from pesticides. We need to do all we can to support the honeybee. No bees = no food. Hive collapse is more serious than any of us really knows, far reaching with an impact that is mind boggling. But I digress…
I would recommend staying away from cashews unless you are in an area that doesn’t frost. They are very susceptible.
Pistachios are actually a fairly large tree; 20 feet or so and you need two of them for production. They need a lot of water, but they also need really good drainage.
There are lots of different nut producing pines. Popular varieties are Siberian, Korean, Italian Stone and Chilgoza pine as well as several types of pinyon, including the Colorado pinyon. The Korean Nut Pine is very hardy, does well in our clay soil, is resistant to white pine blister rust and is a slow grower. A number of the edible pine nut trees are also very nice as ornamentals.
Other nut trees to consider might be the chinquapin, which is similar to a chestnut and of which you would need two for pollination. The ginkgo, also known as the maidenhair tree, which is not a small tree, but at lovely for cooking and eating, have well known health benefits and are one of the few nut trees not affected by pests or disease.
The monkey-puzzle tree is as beautiful and unusual as it is practical. The nuts are about two inches long and grow on a large cone. You can get as many as 250 nuts out of one cone. You can roast them and eat them like chestnuts or grind them and use them as flour, among other things. Monkey-puzzles are evergreen and will require a male and a female in order to produce.
Is anyone thinking about what to do with the bounty we’re starting to see in the Rogue Valley gardens? Once you’ve taken care of your family, perhaps given some back to the community with that extra row or two you planted this spring, what then? If you’re like me, you’re probably overrun with tomatoes. Don’t have time for traditional “putting up” of the harvest? Try a dehydrator. Dry your sliced tomatoes, then pack them in pretty jars layered with basil and garlic and filled with a good olive oil. Pizza topping in a jar. And makes a great Hostess or Holiday gift. Aside from the fact that you may find that you eat it all before the Holidays roll around, of course.
There are lots of dehydrators on the market ranging in price from $50 to $500. If you really believe that you need a new one, perhaps rallying a few friends to go in together on one and everyone takes turns using it. Other options for finding a dehydrator would be thrift stores, the internet to check out Craigslist or even Freecycle (see http://www.freecycle.org for a group in our area) as well as the ever-popular garage sale.
Since most of us are drying fruits, tomatoes, peppers and other produce, the circular, tower style should work just fine. If it’s jerky you’re after, you really do want something with a thermostatic control. They’re usually square and have forced hot air that comes from the rear of the unit across the trays. The square trays are a lot easier to deal with if you’re making fruit leathers since you won’t have that hole in the middle of the tray to contend with.
The summer is progressing; we’re all spending time weeding and hovering over gardens waiting for our first fruits to ripen. I had the first few tomatoes this week along with some lovely sautéed onions and peppers on a turkey burger with a nice, melty Jarlsberg cheese and tomato. Before too long, we’ll all be swimming in produce. Some of us are already sowing our second round of some things while others are already pondering the winter garden. Still others are trying to figure out how to convert their entire garden to square-foot gardening and how many shitake-inoculated oak logs can be stuffed under their porch. Later summer means something different in every garden and to every gardener. And all of it bears with it a certain amount of fun and magic.
I’m hearing a lot about moles and gophers this year. A lot. I even have my own not insignificant issues with moles. I’ve got mole plant. I’ve got castor bean plant. But the best thing I’ve found for moles? A cat. My family presented me with a large, orange and white tom cat, rescued from the Siskiyou Human Society (they work with Petsmart). He’s a fabulous cat. Loves the kids, absolutely LOVES the dog. Last night, I went on the hunt for the cat and found him sitting quietly in the side yard, about 18 inches from a mole hole in action. Watching him, I could tell that he could sense, or perhaps hear, the varmints under the ground. While he didn’t nab himself a mole last night, I know that it’s on his agenda and that nasty, large mole will be dispatched in short order shortly. Got moles? Rescue a cat.
I’m also hearing a lot about a variety of mysterious pests this year. Folks finding plants with lacified leaves and no clue as to what’s doing it. Today, we’re a lot more aware of the need to protect our environment and keep the use of poisons to a minimum. The days of flinging about clouds of dust and spraying everything that moves are on the way out. Organic and biological controls are the wave we are riding right now, and the wave we’ll continue to ride in the future.
Most garden pests have natural predators, but we don’t always have them waiting in our gardens for aphids to show up. I have yet to see a praying mantis hanging about, rubbing her front claws together, saying, “Oh boy, I can’t wait for the squash bugs to hatch!” There are things we can do to draw them into our landscape, but – more often than not – its mail order that puts the beneficial insects and nematodes where we need them. Ladybug Indoor Gardens in Jacksonville can provide pest identification, excellent advice and is an outlet for every kind of beneficial insect that would help you out with your pest problems. Diatomaceous earth will help with a myriad of garden pests, but you want the kind NOT meant for pool filters. Tiny fossils in the diatomaceous earth put minute scratches in the exoskeletons of the pest that walk over it and they wind up dehydrating. Think about a trip to Ladybug Gardens for perhaps no other reason than education. They’re really nice there, as well.
Let’s talk about nuts. I don’t mean your crazy friends, people from California or certain family members. I’m talking about hazel nuts, cashews, almonds and the kind. Little nuts. Most nut trees are too large to grow more than maybe one or two in the home orchard.
The dwarf Siberian pine bears edible pine nuts and grows to only around 9 feet tall. Some hazelnuts are actually more of a bush and work for a crackerjack hedge. There are hybrid nut trees that will produce in as little as 3 years, whereas the larger walnuts and butternuts can take up to ten years to bear fruit. The purple leaf filbert is a smaller hedge bush and you would need two of these. Purple leaf filberts grow to 8 feet or so.
Almonds are a stone fruit like peaches, only you eat the nut. When selecting an almond variety, be sure to either choose a self-pollinator or plant two trees. You will also have to encourage honey bees to come to your yard and orchard if you’re going the cross-pollination route. If you want honey bees to frequent you yard and orchard, stay away from pesticides. We need to do all we can to support the honeybee. No bees = no food. Hive collapse is more serious than any of us really knows, far reaching with an impact that is mind boggling. But I digress…
I would recommend staying away from cashews unless you are in an area that doesn’t frost. They are very susceptible.
Pistachios are actually a fairly large tree; 20 feet or so and you need two of them for production. They need a lot of water, but they also need really good drainage.
There are lots of different nut producing pines. Popular varieties are Siberian, Korean, Italian Stone and Chilgoza pine as well as several types of pinyon, including the Colorado pinyon. The Korean Nut Pine is very hardy, does well in our clay soil, is resistant to white pine blister rust and is a slow grower. A number of the edible pine nut trees are also very nice as ornamentals.
Other nut trees to consider might be the chinquapin, which is similar to a chestnut and of which you would need two for pollination. The ginkgo, also known as the maidenhair tree, which is not a small tree, but at lovely for cooking and eating, have well known health benefits and are one of the few nut trees not affected by pests or disease.
The monkey-puzzle tree is as beautiful and unusual as it is practical. The nuts are about two inches long and grow on a large cone. You can get as many as 250 nuts out of one cone. You can roast them and eat them like chestnuts or grind them and use them as flour, among other things. Monkey-puzzles are evergreen and will require a male and a female in order to produce.
Is anyone thinking about what to do with the bounty we’re starting to see in the Rogue Valley gardens? Once you’ve taken care of your family, perhaps given some back to the community with that extra row or two you planted this spring, what then? If you’re like me, you’re probably overrun with tomatoes. Don’t have time for traditional “putting up” of the harvest? Try a dehydrator. Dry your sliced tomatoes, then pack them in pretty jars layered with basil and garlic and filled with a good olive oil. Pizza topping in a jar. And makes a great Hostess or Holiday gift. Aside from the fact that you may find that you eat it all before the Holidays roll around, of course.
There are lots of dehydrators on the market ranging in price from $50 to $500. If you really believe that you need a new one, perhaps rallying a few friends to go in together on one and everyone takes turns using it. Other options for finding a dehydrator would be thrift stores, the internet to check out Craigslist or even Freecycle (see http://www.freecycle.org for a group in our area) as well as the ever-popular garage sale.
Since most of us are drying fruits, tomatoes, peppers and other produce, the circular, tower style should work just fine. If it’s jerky you’re after, you really do want something with a thermostatic control. They’re usually square and have forced hot air that comes from the rear of the unit across the trays. The square trays are a lot easier to deal with if you’re making fruit leathers since you won’t have that hole in the middle of the tray to contend with.
The summer is progressing; we’re all spending time weeding and hovering over gardens waiting for our first fruits to ripen. I had the first few tomatoes this week along with some lovely sautéed onions and peppers on a turkey burger with a nice, melty Jarlsberg cheese and tomato. Before too long, we’ll all be swimming in produce. Some of us are already sowing our second round of some things while others are already pondering the winter garden. Still others are trying to figure out how to convert their entire garden to square-foot gardening and how many shitake-inoculated oak logs can be stuffed under their porch. Later summer means something different in every garden and to every gardener. And all of it bears with it a certain amount of fun and magic.
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