MY LAWN GOT HAMMERED by 650 pairs of visiting toes, nevertheless I knew who to call. For almost a decade, I’ve turned with lawn-care factors to the work of Paul Tukey, author in 2007 of “The Pure Backyard Care Handbook,” and founding father of SafeLawns.org, an advocacy and education nonprofit. Paul relocated in 2013 from New England to his new submit as Chief Sustainability Officer for Glenstone, a museum in Potomac, Maryland, the place the large grounds have been maintained since 2010 with out synthetic chemical pesticides or fertilizers–a sort of dwelling classroom for pure panorama stewardship. He answered our pressing questions on my latest public-radio current: controlling crabgrass and totally different weeds; reversing compaction; overseeding, and does corn gluten meal truly work as a weed-and-feed? Study, or listen in.
the background: why go pure?
IF YOU ARE STILL USING any synthetic chemical compounds in your backyard, I hope you will stop. So does Paul Tukey. When he based mostly SafeLawns in 2006, Paul says, “It didn’t occur to individuals who their lawns may presumably be dangerous.”
“The sad actuality is that everyone knows that loads of the chemical compounds used to develop the backyard (the fertilizers), or the chemical compounds used to manage weeds or bugs or fungal illnesses—all of these chemical compounds are designed to kill points, they normally may make us very sick, they normally make the water very sick, and the soil very sick, and the air very unhealthy.”
Giving up chemical compounds doesn’t suggest you will need to pave over your entrance yard.
“We will have lawns prolonged in the end these chemical compounds are banned in america, as they have been banned in Canada,” says Paul—explaining that larger than 80 p.c of Canadians can’t use weed and feed merchandise, or glyphosate (the energetic ingredient in Roundup herbicide) on account of they’re principally banned there.
(The story of how one Canadian doctor’s objections to backyard chemical compounds grew to grow to be a federal case, was the subject of a documentary Tukey made known as “A Chemical Response.”)
why pure works for lawns
PAUL TUKEY makes a simple case for a safe backyard.
“A lot of what we do in pure lawncare is solely widespread sense,” he says. “Turfgrass has the similar needs that you just and I do. It should breathe, it should drink, and it should eat.”
It’s really easy, he teaches it to highschool youngsters in frequent classroom lectures.
“How do the timber develop so tall throughout the forest?” Tukey asks the youthful audiences. “It wasn’t on account of any particular person ran spherical with Miracle-Gro there at midnight.
“It is on account of Mother Nature is conscious of develop points, and if we let the pine needles and leaves and the bark fall to the forest floor, that stuff all turns into the meals that turns into incremental tree improvement 12 months after 12 months.”
Subsequent he asks the kids how all that stuff turns into meals. And apparently a lot of the boys, significantly, get it:
It’s the worms, they reply. Certain, Paul confirms: The worms and the microorganisms throughout the soil break it down and swap all that pure supplies into plant meals.
“Technically, it’s known as mineralization,” he says, “or what my grandmother known as ‘the poop loop of life’–which means each factor eats pure supplies and excretes it.” (No shock that he grew up on a dairy farm, and found this lesson early.)
Making a hospitable environment for that course of to happen, significantly by topdressing the backyard with compost, is important to Paul’s pure lawncare system—and what I need to do proper right here correct this minute. Among the many questions I requested Paul on the current, and his replies adjust to:
repairing a compacted backyard
Q. So the place do I begin with my downtrodden areas of backyard, Paul?
A. It is a should to find a method to get air once more into that soil, and the best means to do this is with a core-aeration machine that cuts finger-sized holes 3 or 4 inches prolonged down into the soil.
Your backyard looks like Swiss cheese afterward–loads worse than it did–nevertheless then you’ll fill these cores with compost, topdressing the backyard with it and rising “the sponge situation” of the backyard, creating further pore space so it may breathe as soon as extra.
That you must make perpendicular passes, so each house is hit twice. A minimal of a dozen holes per sq. foot is nice.
Q. I regarded up the place to rent the walk-behind aeration machine, nevertheless can I truly run it myself?
A. The machine is 2 to three events as bodily demanding as pushing the frequent 21-inch lawnmower. It’s like holding once more on a horse’s reins. You need to have the flexibility to gradual it down—the machine will seize onto these cores, and must run away with you a bit.
Alternatively, you need to use a hand core aerator machine with two or three cores, using your shoe as you will to step on a spade. That’s good for smaller areas.
Don’t trouble with the spiked sneakers that are purchased for the job. All that does is poke pinholes throughout the soil and compact all the soil throughout the pinhole. You need to carry the plug out and create an actual airspace.
In case your funds or power means you possibly can’t deal with the heavier machine, and in addition you don’t must buy a information one: Use a broadfork. Then topdress with compost and overseed into the compost. It’s greater than doing nothing.
crabgrass administration, organically
Q. So what about pure administration of crabgrass (which so many readers have been writing in about as of late)?
A. I get this question somewhat loads presently of 12 months, too—“What do I do?”—and it’s truly a matter of what you most likely did or didn’t do once more in April, May and June. Once you’ve acquired crabgrass now, there’s not loads you’ll be able to do furthermore pulling it out.
Don’t get too wrung out about killing crabgrass in August, on account of it’s going to be lifeless on the primary frost, anyhow. It’s an annual grass.
Nonetheless make sure you don’t let the crabgrass seed hit the underside. I don’t usually favor to remove clippings from the backyard, nevertheless in case you could have loads of crabgrass seed, bag your clippings everytime you mow the crabgrass this time of 12 months, to assemble these seeds, and put them deep throughout the woods or in a well-heated compost pile.
Step 2: overseed these areas now. [Paul was speaking in late August; in the Northeast, for instance, mid-August through mid-September is prime seeding time].
And get all your raking accomplished this fall.
Crabgrass seed needs gentle to germinate. In April or May, everytime you mow too low or rake too vigorously, you create the proper state of affairs for it to germinate.
Subsequent spring don’t mow till the backyard is larger than 3 inches tall—and as soon as extra, do all your raking throughout the fall. It doesn’t need loads gentle, nevertheless solely a burst of sunshine, so in case you mow too low throughout the spring and rake like crazy, all you’ve accomplished is hearth up the crabgrass seeds and open up the sunshine.
The alternative time that crabgrass takes off: when people mow too low or scalp a patch in summer time season, opening up the sunshine cowl throughout the backyard, and additional crabgrass seeds germinate.
At Glenstone, we mow the backyard at 4 inches extreme. The crew on a regular basis wishes to go low, nevertheless I’m on a regular basis saying no, no, no, no, no—not till into October proper right here in Maryland (in cooler climates you’ll go lower a little bit bit earlier, and by that I suggest down to 3 inches, and presumably 2 and a half).
Then don’t go away your backyard too prolonged heading into winter on account of it’s a terrific haven for topic mice and snow mildew—so it’s a superb suggestion to do this closing mowing low, and clear up the backyard then.
does corn gluten meal truly forestall backyard weeds?
Q. Is corn gluten the nice miracle it was meant to be as a result of the substitute pure “weed” throughout the “weed and feed” backyard routine? I protect seeing it in the marketplace touted as such, nevertheless I believed not.
A. Corn gluten meal was patented in 1991 by Iowa State as a pre-emergent weed administration (which means it has to go down sooner than the weeds germinate). Nonetheless it’s purchased throughout the yard services 52 weeks a 12 months as a weed and feed—which is probably going one of many good fallacies.
Corn gluten meal works as a pre-emergent if it’s put down on the correct parts in just a few 10-day window, counting on the place you reside throughout the nation—in some other case you shouldn’t be using it.
It’s a terrific fertilizer—however it certainly’s an enormously pricey fertilizer—and in case you set it down on the parts advisable for a pre-emergent, you’ve actually put down an extreme quantity of fertilizer for that 12 months.
So thumb’s-down on corn gluten meal as a weed administration. As a nice backyard booster to get a inexperienced backyard, it’s nice issues.
further from paul tukey and glenstone
PAUL TUKEY made an infinite career shift from working the earlier SafeLawns Foundation to Chief Sustainability Officer for Glenstone, a up to date art work museum in Potomac, Maryland (above) that’s like a dwelling classroom for pure panorama stewardship. You presumably can go to free of value, by appointment. Paul’s breakthrough 2007 e-book “The Pure Lawncare Handbook” (Amazon affiliate hyperlink) is loaded with commonsense suggestion resembling the knowledge he shared in our interview.
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