SumaGreen: Two Week Update

It's actually Day 18+ on the SumaGreen addition.  I applied 2 ounces per thousand on May 11th.  This is an initial evaluation, with the main one around day 30 and an additional one during summer to measure drought resistance with respect to the weather.

There were five test areas, with each report below:

Control Area:  About five hundred square feet on the back line, fed organically at less than half the rate of the main lawn.    Lawn quality is excellent, color is OK.  There have been no changes to this area over the last two weeks.

Back Line:  Maintenance as the control area, except that I applied 2 ounces of SumaGreen.  Quality is excellent, color is OK.  No change.

Main Lawn:  Organically heavily fed, with kelp, humic acid, and iron regularly applied.  Quality is extraordinary, color is good.  No change.

Gardens:  Organically moderately fed, synthetically lightly fed, heavily mulched with hardwood.  I regularly apply kelp and humic acid.  There are many species of zinnia, marigold, verbena, Convulvulus, statice, Melampodium, celosia, salvia, and a large number of perennials.  Growth rate, quality, and blooming are very good, flower  color is excellent.  There are no visible changes from the SumaGreen application.

North neighbor:  I applied over about a hundred square feet over the line.  The lawn is mowed regularly and fed by TruGreen.  Color and quality are poor.  There is no change in the SumaGreen applied area.

South neighbor:  I applied over about a hundred square feet over the line.  The lawn is mowed regularly but never fed.  Color and quality are poor.  There is no change in the SumaGreen applied area.

While it's too early to evaluate at this point, the initial indications are that SumaGreen has no positive effects for at least the first two weeks.

Late May Photos

The lawn is doing exceptionally well this year except for color. This photo is post iron spray the last two days.

The gardens are flourishing even more than normal! The photos below are at one week old.

As always, click any image to embiggen it.

Post iron spray, color has improved here. I certainly have no complaints about density or growth rate!


Week one photo:


A garden friend coming to visit (and eat my plants, but that's a risk I'm willing to take):


Some very happy columbine blossoms:


An equally happy yellow Magellan zinnia:


Its friend, a scarlet Magellan zinnia (the color is a bit on the orange side as opposed to a pure scarlet, actually):


And a yellow Knockout blossom. There are about 200 others on the bush that look just like this one:

May Photos and Experiment

The May photos for the lawn and gardens are below. The gardens were just planted, so as always this early in the season look rather sad and sparse. This will rapidly change.

I'm trying SumaGreen Turf on the lawn and gardens this year, a biological product with many different types of bacteria in humic acid. I had wanted the reference shots for today as I applied late in the day yesterday. Changes should take place over the next four weeks.

As always, you can click on any image to increase the size.

The May lawn. Density and growth rate are both excellent, although color isn't wonderful at the moment. I haven't had much time to keep up with the spray iron.


The purple rhododendron, which seems to be very happy where it is. It's tripled in size in the last two years.


The magnolia bloomed nicely earlier, and the rose bush behind it should be along shortly.


Newly-planted gardens always look sparse, and I just finished this yesterday.

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.

Late November Iron

I wasn't quite happy with the lawn color in the Thanksgiving Day photos, so I've added iron twice since then for a grand total of 12 ounces per thousand. That would be very high for a non-elite bluegrass, although elite bluegrasses just turn very dark greens.

That's the last for the year, and this shot should last right into early spring.

As always, click on any photo to make it larger.

The standard shot:


Across the back:

Thanksgiving Photos

The lawn's doing very well for November, although I have a feeling that a lot of my winterizer washed through and got lost in the 2 1/2" of rain we got. If I see evidence of that, I'll do a partial re-winterization over the next few weeks.

As always, click any image to embiggen it.

The standard shot, with extra leaves. I sent the mower out to take care of it just after I took this shot:



A shot across the back, including the last of the trees that's currently de-leafing all over the lawn. Myrtle (the robotic lawnmower) had just chopped through these:



The southern face:



Bonus Image! My Christmas cactus decided to bloom a little early this year:

Yearly Lawn Additions

I winterized the lawn today with Vigoro Super Green, which contains enough slow-release nitrogen to keep my lawn green over the winter (as it doesn't tend to go dormant). This marks the last addition for the year. This year's total organic amount is well down from last year's 450 pounds per thousand, and far down from the 1,200 the year before.

Updated December 4, 2011: I winterized for a second time and I've added some foliar nitrogen as well. I added the extra line and updated the information.

Date	N	P	K	Iron	Organics	Other Notes
3/18/2011	0.60	0.24	0.00	0.48	12.0	Milorganite
4/2/2011	0.73	0.29	0.13	0.21	33.7	Corn, Milorganite
5/1/2011	1.39	0.45	0.15	0.31	22.7	Soy, Milorganite
6/1/2011	1.15	0.38	0.10	0.36	19.0	Soy, Milorganite
7/1/2011	1.04	0.41	0.00	0.83	20.7	Milorganite
8/1/2011	2.03	0.51	0.33	0.68	33.8	Milorganite, Soy
8/16/2011	1.05	0.42	0.00	0.84	21.0	Milorganite
8/24/2011	0.49	0.00	0.07	0.07	0.00	Vigoro Super Green
9/1/2011	2.06	0.42	0.45	0.52	29.3	Soy, Milorganite, 24-0-11
9/9/2011	1.34	0.38	0.18	0.82	19.2	Milorganite, 24-0-11
9/16/2011	1.07	0.43	0.00	0.85	21.3	Milorganite
10/1/2011	1.30	0.40	0.14	0.84	20.0	Milorganite, 24-0-11
10/12/2011	0.34	0.00	0.15	0.04	0.00	24-0-11
10/18/2011	1.10	0.44	0.00	0.88	22.0	Milorganite
11/1/2011	0.94	0.37	0.00	0.75	14.7	Milorganite
11/18/2011	1.45	0.04	0.23	0.16	0.00	Vigoro Super Green, Spray
12/4/2011	1.16	0.00	0.16	0.04	0.00	Vigoro 29-0-4
Total per K ft:	19.24	5.18	2.09	8.68	289.4	2585 active organic total

Yearly Garden Additions

I'm already done with the gardens' feeding for the year, so I guess it's time to add the amounts for the year. In addition to the Milorganite, I fed with Miracle Gro 24-8-16 from May through early July at a bit under half rate weekly through my EZ-Flo irrigation system. From early July to mid-September, I used K-Gro from K-Mart 15-30-15 to encourage flowering. That was also at about half rate weekly through the EZ-Flo system.

Organic additions were about 100 pounds per thousand less than last year, until you consider that 19 cubic yards of mulch went onto the gardens this year for an additional amount of 3,000 pounds per thousand square feet. That was an extraordinarily heavy addition of mulch.

Date	N	P	K	Iron	Organics	Other Notes
3/18/2011	0.50	0.20	0.00	0.40	10.0	Milorganite
5/1/2011	1.35	0.54	0.00	1.08	27.0	Milorganite
6/1/2011	1.20	0.48	0.00	0.96	24.0	Milorganite
7/1/2011	1.55	0.62	0.00	1.24	32.0	Milorganite
8/1/2011	1.13	0.45	0.00	0.90	22.5	Milorganite
9/1/2011	1.13	0.45	0.00	0.90	22.5	Milorganite
10/1/2011	2.47	0.99	0.00	1.98	49.5	Milorganite
Total per K ft:	9.33	3.73	0.00	7.46	187.5	373 active organic total

October Photos

The weather's been pretty bad for the last two months with nearly constant rain, so color and density have suffered. Fortunately, the weather temporarily cleared, so hopefully things will improve.

First, the standard shot. As always, you can click on any image to embiggen it.


The gardens are still doing pretty well for October:


The Impatiens don't seem to mind the weather:

Soy and Milorganite

Is that soyorganite? Perhaps!

I tend to like applying a heavy mass of organics to the lawn in August to feed it in September when the grass really wants a nice dinner. I'll do it again in September for October.

I just applied 16.7 pounds per thousand of soybean meal, plus 17.1 pounds per thousand of Milorganite. The grand total protein is about 14 pounds per thousand square feet, or about 2 pounds of nitrogen (eventually) per thousand. Other elements are low except iron, which is almost 0.7 pounds per thousand.

Don't try this with synthetics or you'll burn the lawn badly. For organics, it's fine, and provides a nice base for fall.

August's Lawn Photo

Well, July 31st and there will probably be another one later, but this will do for right now...

It's holding well through summer, although color is a little disappointing at this point. That's fairly typical for summer, and I've been unable to add any iron for about a month.

July Lawn Photo

We're moving into a very, very hot period, so I took the July shots today post watering last night. I'm hoping it holds, but I figured I should photograph this before we hit a hundred degrees plus.

I've been feeding normally (monthly), and applied the equivalent of 600 pounds per thousand of sawdust to the problem areas that don't retain water as well. That's helped this summer and reduced watering somewhat, and the long-term result should be to change the soil a bit to hold more water to begin with.

Lawn color is OK for July, nothing stellar. Hot weather tends to decrease color a bit. It also desperately needs to be mowed, but I won't do that until the weather breaks.

Here's the standard lawn shot. As always, click to embiggen it.



Here's the back garden, which is doing very well this year:



The Double Knockout rose is doing well, but I cut it back in late June. The second bloom isn't quite as impressive as it usually is:



I'm a major fan of the Teddy Bear sunflowers, but still waiting to see how good their late-season performance is. It's possible they'll stop blooming, in which case I'll use about the same number next year instead of increasing them:



Here's a closeup of one of the blossoms:

Ironing the Lawn, Day 2

Colors continue to darken considerably, although I took this image under fairly heavy overcast and the visual hue is slightly lighter than this in sunlight (although not much).

Growth rates are still incredibly fast and I very much need to mow the lawn. Unfortunately, with storms due, there won't be time for that today.

Ironing the Lawn

I added a huge amount of iron to the grass yesterday as temperatures are supposed to be reasonable, and rainfall is expected today and tomorrow. The amounts added were 21 ounces of ferrous sulfate per thousand, or about five times normal rate.

I don't recommend trying this if the following day will be sunny, temperatures exceed 85, or the dilution levels you use aren't pretty high. The burn potential from this is extraordinary.

Color's improved, although not as much as I had hoped. Growth rates are still extremely high, and the grass could use mowing again. I just mowed two days ago.

Here's the photo. As always, click to embiggen it: