Cracked Corn Down!

I got motivated and dropped the cracked corn on the lawn immediately. I've applied 20 pounds per thousand square feet.

Cracked corn is a fairly mild and gentle anti-fungal for the lawn, as it encourages Trichoderma fungi which will hunt other surface fungi.

As a feeding source, it's extremely light. All told, it works out to 0.33 pounds of nitrogen per thousand.

This Year's Prices

I finally made it to the grain mill today! Cracked corn was $9.23 per fifty pound bag, down $0.04 or 0.04% from last year. Soybean meal was $12.47, up $0.20 or 1.6% from last year.

All in all, prices are pretty reasonable for 2012 so far.

Um...and Again

I just dropped another 350 pounds of cracked corn on the lawn and the birds, at least, are pleased with me.

This is the second last drop at this level for the year--in fact, for a good long time, if not forever.

I just passed 2 tons of material on the lawn and gardens this year, or well over 650 pounds per thousand.

I Fed Again...

We're moving toward September, so down went another 350 pounds of corn meal, 3 bags of Milorganite, and about 40 pounds of leftover compost (scattered very thinly across the property). That works out to about 80 pounds per thousand.

Fortunately, this is the last year. My back hurts.

Still More Feeding and Compost Update

We're getting a large amount of rain this week, so I put down another 350 pounds of cracked corn and 72 pounds of Milorganite yesterday. I fed the swale again to prepare it for fall.

That's down to another 1.3 pounds of nitrogen, but I'm adding it more for the soil changes than feeding the lawn.

The composting is working well in the free garbage can. The first load was very heavy on torn up sod, so it didn't break apart very well. I added more shredded junk mail and garden trimmings and the pile is now at 144°. Hopefully that will break apart the sod a little more.

At this rate, I should have a load of compost by the end of September, just in time to start composting the fall leaves.

More Corn and Kelp

Summer's about to heat up here in PA (if it ever stops raining), so I've added 50 pounds per thousand of cracked corn and 8 pounds per thousand kelp meal to help prepare for it, feed the lawn over summer, and help fight the fungi from all the rain we've had.

It looks like my ferrous sulfate will arrive Friday, so I'll be soil drenching on Saturday.

Does Corn Meal On The Lawn Really Work?

I found this search term in my logs and I was intrigued by the question. The short answer is: yes.

The longer answer is that it depends on what you're doing.

For fungal control, 10 to 20 pounds per thousand square feet are sufficient. Corn meal attracts trichoderma fungus, This fungus takes up space in the soil, giving your invading fungus less room to grow. It also has the ability to kill other fungi, which is a major advantage when fighting a fungus problem in your lawn. However, for severe infections chemical controls may be called for.

For soil conditioning, anything from 10 to about 60 pounds per thousand is fine. Your worms like to eat fungi and bacteria, and the corn meal will grow those in spades. Additionally, bacteria and fungi themselves help condition your soil by attaching soil particles together using glomalin, increasing the soil's structure.

For feeding the lawn I wouldn't use corn meal. Granted, organics don't feed the lawn directly, however there are higher protein (nitrogen) meals available such as soybean that don't require the amounts that corn meal does. Additionally, corn meal doesn't contain large amounts of phosphorous or potassium, making it a less effective fertilizer overall. Sixty pounds of corn meal per thousand square feet would be required four times yearly to feed the lawn. By comparison, fourteen pounds per thousand square feet of soybean meal four times a year will feed the lawn at the same level.

For smaller fungal outbreaks you can use the corn meal from the grocery store. For general soil additives, purchasing the corn meal from your local feed mill is far more cost-effective.

Cracked corn will work just as well, although you may notice birds feeding on it.

We discuss a lot of these issues over at Bestlawn and you can read all the forums without signing up. However, signup is free, they never send unrequested e-mail, and everybody is very helpful with lawn questions.

More Corn Meal

I bought 7 more bags of corn meal, six for the lawn and 1 for the gardens. That went down today.

One note that I have is not to purchase the fine-ground stuff in the future. I had to put that down by hand, whereas the rougher ground will go through my spreader. Doing it by hand took four hours.

Well, at least it's complete! That's now 83 pounds of corn meal per thousand (about eight times normal), or enough to condition the soil through spring. If I add any in May, I'll probably go with cracked corn. Right now, I have some very happy earthworms who will hopefully have more earthworms...

Corn Meal and the Lawn

200 pounds of corn meal went down today, and I'm starting to account for the area that will end up being planted with Thuja come April. As of now, I'm using a typical standard of 6,000 square feet of lawn, figuring that about 1,000 will either be under or behind the new bushes and I won't want to feed it because I don't want it to grow that much.

So that works out to 33.3 pounds per thousand, about half what I'd like to add (but I could only get 4 bags and will need to go for four more). Corn meal is mostly a soil conditioner, or used to combat fungal issues, which I don't have. I'm looking to deepen the topsoil more, however, and for that it works well and can be put down in very large amounts as it has few resources. I use a standard NPK of 1.65-0.65-0.40 for that, a far cry from soybean's 7-1-2.