June Lawn Photo

Color still isn't stellar even after pouring on ferrous sulfate, but the growth rate and density are increasing quickly. I think the amount of kelp I'm putting on it has something to do with that.

Still, I'm not displeased. I'll apply iron as the weather allows and hope that growth shifts into summer mode at some point!

The Tenacity white spots are completely gone and the P. annua and P. trivialis are dead. A few small spots survived, and those are currently being re-treated.

As always, click the photo to embiggen it:



Bonus image--the June garden, doing very well comparatively:

Tenacity Update and Gardens

The P. trivialis is definitely dying out, as is all the P. annua. It looks like no further treatment will be necessary this spring, as there's no remaining unwanted grasses.

Discoloration of the surrounding areas is minor in most places, although the northern face did discolor a bit more. In very few cases is it more than mildly annoying, and the grass should recover in June.

For all photos, you can click to embiggen them, as always.

P. trivialis, dying fast:


Robin's nest, discovered when trimming the Viburnum--I stopped and will continue the cut-back when the babies are out of the nest:


The first of the Teddy Bear sunflowers, still only partially open. If these are as durable as claimed and rebloom as they're supposed to, they'll find much wider use in the gardens next year!

Sunny Knockout Rose, Day 2

What a difference a sunny day makes! The rose opened more fully, and the petals have turned cream with a yellow center. By tomorrow, I expect that the entire rose will be cream-colored.

For its location, and the dark green leaves on the bush, this is perfect. The scent is still very intense and very sweet, and I had to brush a few pollinators away to take the photograph.

Sunny Knockout Rose

I added two Sunny Knockout (Rosa "Radsunny") roses to the garden this year. So far, both are doing very well, even the wet and cloudy weather we've had.

The first one bloomed today. The yellow rose will fade to cream with yellow, and eventually cream, making a nice contrast with the newly-blooming yellow roses. The scent is fairly intense and very sweet with a note of spice.

As always, click the thumbnail to embiggen it.

Tenacity Photos

I've been using Tenacity for about three weeks to remove some P. annua and P. trivialis. Here are the update photos--as always, click to embiggen.

This is a patch of P. trivialis, rapidly dying:


Rare patches of P. annua. You can see there's very little damage to surrounding bluegrasses:


Bonus Images! A very happy Bolero marigold:


An equally happy Magellan double yellow zinnia:


And their friend, a spring-blooming columbine:

May's Lawn Photo

I can't say that color is stellar, but we've had a lot of rain and the lack of sunlight has lightened it somewhat.  Additionally, I haven't iron-sprayed at any decent level in quite a while.

Quality and density are excellent, although I noticed some P. annua in it.  I've ordered Tenacity to attempt to set that back.

The large blue tarp is part of the hardening off tents for 700 home-grown annuals. That's the one with the Wave petunias and Teddy Bear sunflowers.

As always, click the image to make it larger.

Updated Lawn Photo

This photo's from today, April 6, 2011. The lawn isn't completely back yet as evidenced by the more yellow areas in the center (where the sun doesn't penetrate quite as well and that aren't close to a warmed mulch bed or brick or concrete).

Still, compared to the neighbors'...well, it goes without saying.

The cheery daffodil are just a nice bonus. The chionodoxa (glory of the snow) are just blooming as well, with a few of the earliest tulips not far behind!

As always, click the slightly blurry thumbnail to make it much larger, and that image can be expanded again to about triple the size for detail.

This Year's Prices

Cracked corn cost me $9.27 for 50 pounds this year, or up 45% from last year. Soy was $12.47 for 50 pounds, or up 19%.

Last year's prices were fairly normal. Corn's price is rising due to ethanol production, plus the fact that corn didn't do well in some areas of the country last year. Additionally, grain exports are increasing across the board as many areas in the world had poor production.

Estimates for this year's usage in the lawn and gardens is down from last year, so the amount I spend should be approximately the same or slightly less.

December Photos

I'd tentatively say it doesn't look too bad for December first...

The standard shot. As always, click to embiggen, and you can click again on the larger version for a super-sized one.



Here's the front lawn, with a few leaves down in the latest wind storm today. I thought the contrast down the block was amusing. When driving up the street, there's one dark green patch...

Yearly Garden Additions

This is for the gardens, which received about 560 pounds of organics (not including mulch), or about 280 per thousand square feet.

Date	N	P	K	Iron	Organics	Other Notes
3/18/2010	2.25	0.90	0.00	1.80	45.0	Milorganite
3/28/2010	1.80	0.72	0.00	1.44	36.0	Milorganite
4/7/2010	3.40	2.88	0.40	1.44	36.0	Milorganite, Starter
4/11/2010	1.75	0.25	0.50	0.00	25.0	Soybean Meal
5/6/2010	2.50	1.42	0.70	1.44	36.0	10-10-10, Milorganite
6/3/2010	2.95	1.77	1.02	0.00	25.0	10-10-10, Starter, Soy
7/1/2010	2.25	0.93	0.63	0.00	25.0	Starter, Soybean Meal
8/1/2010	1.05	0.90	0.13	0.44	11.0	Starter, Milorganite
9/1/2010	1.75	0.25	0.50	0.00	25.0	Soybean Meal
10/2/2010	0.90	0.36	0.00	0.72	18.0	Milorganite
Total per K ft:	20.60	10.36	3.88	7.28	282.0	564 active organic total

Yearly Lawn Additions

As of today, the year is done. The Winterizer went down this afternoon!

Here's the chart of all additions on the lawn throughout the entire gardening season. It sums to about 2,880 pounds total material, or about 450 pounds per thousand square feet. I'll publish the gardens separately.

Date	N	P	K	Iron	Organics	Other Notes
3/7/2010	0.64	0.26	0.00	0.51	12.8	Milorganite
4/1/2010	0.77	0.31	0.00	0.75	15.4	Milorganite, FeSO4
4/11/2010	0.35	0.14	0.09	0.00	21.4	Cracked Corn
4/25/2010	1.16	0.17	0.33	0.00	16.7	Soybean Meal
5/7/2010	0.60	0.81	0.15	3.57	0.00	Starter Fertilizer, FeSO4
5/21/2010	1.01	0.28	0.14	0.41	17.4	Soybean Meal, Milorganite
6/15/2010	1.01	0.28	0.14	0.41	17.4	Soybean Meal, Milorganite
7/8/2010	1.01	0.28	0.14	0.41	17.4	Soybean Meal, Milorganite
7/20/2010	0.00	0.00	0.00	3.57	0.00	FeSO4
8/1/2010	1.11	0.39	0.06	0.73	21.0	Milorganite, Soybean Meal
8/15/2010	1.26	0.24	0.29	0.21	19.4	Soybean Meal, Milorganite
8/29/2010	1.77	0.44	0.29	0.62	29.7	Milorganite, Soybean Meal
9/12/2010	1.00	0.14	0.29	0.00	14.3	Soybean Meal
9/19/2010	1.16	0.00	0.16	0.00	0.00	Vigoro 29-0-4
9/26/2010	1.00	0.14	0.29	0.00	14.3	Soybean Meal
10/3/2010	0.96	0.39	0.00	0.77	19.3	Milorganite
10/11/2010	0.83	0.00	0.11	0.00	0.00	Vigoro 29-0-4
10/17/2010	0.90	0.36	0.00	0.72	18.0	Milorganite
11/15/2010	1.55	0.68	0.29	0.00	194.2	Leaves
11/28/2010	1.50	0.00	0.21	0.21	0.00	Vigoro Super Green
Total per K ft:	19.59	5.31	2.98	12.89	448.7	2879 active organic total

More Leaves

I've finished the leaves through most of the lawn, leaving only about a hundred square feet so I have a place to mulch the garden waste for composting. It's likely I'll get a few more bags. Some will be composted, plus I'll add some to the problem areas in the lawn to help retain water next year.

The total so far is 1,050 pounds in 91.5 bags. I skipped the swale, so that's a grand total of 175 pounds per thousand, or about 1.4 pounds nitrogen, 0.61 pounds phosphorus, and 0.26 pounds potassium. Plus small amounts of every other element.

The organic total for the lawn so far this year is 429.5 pounds per thousand, or 2,814 pounds over the entire lawn. I'm probably done with the organics, but won't post the charts for the year until winterization is complete, probably in a week or two or three, depending on our weather.

Leaf Score!

Click on the above for a larger version.

Today's leaf score was 27.5 bags, mowed small and packed down solidly. Figure that's close to 350 pounds of leaves--estimating low, which I always do. That should be sufficient to cover about 2,000 square feet of lawn.

I'm shooting for around 150 pounds per thousand square feet total this year, or about a thousand pounds of leaves. Some areas will receive around 300 pounds per thousand, most notably those where I had drought damage this summer. Those retain water less well than other areas at the moment.

So why am I mulching that many leaves? Click here to see why!

Ferrous Ammonium Sulfate

...and some basic chemistry.

Thanks to Gary in Chicago and some chemical calculations, the lawn has darkened considerably (even more than before):



You can make your own ferrous ammonium sulfate very easily from two separate chemicals:  ferrous sulfate and ammonium sulfate.

I have some rough measurements and calculations that work for me.  The solution should be relatively close to equimolar (containing an equal number of moles of each chemical.  A mole is around 6 × 10²³ molecules, but as long as the molecule count is the same, it doesn't matter how many there actually are).

Fortunately you don't need a very powerful magnifying glass and the ability to count to extremely high numbers!  A little basic chemistry will tell you that there are 151.91 grams of material in 1 mole of ferrous sulfate, 132.14 grams in a mole of ammonium sulfate.  As long as you use 1.15 times as much ferrous sulfate by weight as you do ammonium sulfate, the solution will be close to pure ferrous ammonium sulfate.

It isn't that critical to be precise, so a 1 to 1 ratio is more than good enough.  Ammonium sulfate can strip some calcium from plants, so tilting the balance toward the ferrous sulfate is best--use more than 1.15 times the weight of ferrous sulfate as ammonium sulfate.

One thing to note is that this is by weight.  My ferrous sulfate doesn't seem to pack as well as the ammonium sulfate, so I require about twice as much by volume.  Your mileage will almost certainly differ.

Two to four ounces per thousand square feet in three gallons of water worked best for me.  Let it sit on the grass for 24 hours, then irrigate in well.  This solution should never be applied if temperatures will be over 80 degrees F.

With a good eye, you may notice a slight color change in an hour (I did).  However, if the lawn requires the iron, you'll certainly notice it within a day or two.  Color durability is much better than plain ferrous sulfate--post the next mow, I still saw very dark green color that hasn't faded at all.

Photo Update

Lawn performance has improved since the rains resumed at the end of September. I caught these shots today just before the next rainstorm comes through tomorrow.

The bit of cheating with synthetics I did seemed to increase the lawn density but never caused excessive top growth.

The standard shot. As always, sorry for the slightly blurry thumbnail--you can click the image to enlarge it, and click again on the image on PhotoBucket's site to enlarge it even further!


The gardens. Most of the marigolds have timed out and are gone for the season, but the salvia and celosia just keep going. The cannas aren't looking bad for October, either.


Bonus image! An October rose, with its friends in the background. This rosebush, a Double Knockout, usually blooms through November.