Another Photo!

As always, click to embiggen. This shot is from today, March 31, 2009. The color is starting to deepen and the density is slowly increasing. If you look very closely, you'll see a few minor problem areas that I've now core aerated. I'd already reseeded those over the winter and they should be sprouting sometime soon.




Bonus shot! Here's a blue blooming Iris Reticulata.

Soil Testing

I'm sending off soil tests to U. Mass Amherst, but I also have a small and very basic sample kit of my own from Rapid Test.

The pH tested at 6.5 (see below), and I'm pending on the other tests waiting for the soil mix to settle. That could be 24 hours, so I'll update this later. (Later: N is testing as deficient, which is no surprise on an organic lawn. P tests as sufficient. K is testing as surplus).


Here's the pH test. I'm calling it 6.5, give or take a little. If that's correct, it's nearly perfect.

Here's the mixed soil sample (disgusting!) Make sure to use a cheap blender

And here are the soil cores for U. Mass Amherst.

Kelp on the Lawn and Gardens

I just put down 10 pounds per thousand square feet of kelp meal on the lawn and gardens. Using a standard of 1-0-2, that's around 0.1 lbs nitrogen, no phosphorus, and 0.2 lbs of potassium. However, kelp generally isn't used for its NPK supply and functions far better as a soil conditioner.

Kelp contains auxins, cytokinins, and gibberelins, which encourage the roots to grow as well. That will help in both the lawn and gardens and assist in restoring more of the grub damage they sustained last fall.

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.

Updated (Late) Image and Mowing

The lawn went through first mow yesterday, taking it down to 1 1/2" to get rid of the dead tips and expose the soil to a little more sun. It's greener, and the weather looks to hold in the forties and fifties this week so it should green up even more.

I took a reference photo of the bluegrass back in February but neglected to post it--whoops! Here it is now. As always, click to embiggen.

Alfalfa On The Lawn

I distributed 100 lbs of alfalfa meal on the lawn today, for about 14 pounds per thousand square feet. I usually use a standard of 2.5 - 1 - 2 (NPK) for that, so it adds up to around 0.35 lbs of nitrogen, 0.14 phosphorous, and 0.29 of potassium.

It has the advantage of containing tricontanol (a growth hormone) as well, so the roots will respond to it very well. After some issues with grubs last year, any response I can get on the roots would be very good.

This already has my total organics near 85 pounds per thousand this year. That's quite high.

I also planted a second Double Knockout rose bush as the first one flowered after only a month in the soil and kept flowering until it froze. I added several handfuls of alfalfa meal to the soil--roses love it--and fed the older bush as well.

Several Tasks

I moved a rose bush today to prepare for the new shrubs on the back line. That, at least, was fairly easy!

The lawn saw another treatment with Nature's Magic and Aerify since the weather was a very nice seventy. I also applied a small amount of Sul-Po-Mag to get 1/3 of a pound of potassium down.

Deinflation is Grand

I stopped out at Albright's Mill in Kempton today for soybean meal (and corn meal for some new shrubs). Last year's price was $13.25, this year's was $10.97. If I'm doing the math right, it went down 17%!

Milorganite and Purchases

The grass is starting to awaken very slightly (so of course we'll be getting 2 to 4 inches of snow tomorrow). I put down 144 lbs of Milorganite as a feeding now that the dog food has been consumed by the birds and worms.

I ordered 200 lbs of kelp meal from Dirt Works for $258 including shipping. That's a bit expensive, but I can't get it locally and that's enough for the whole year. I also bought a second EZ Flo system from Dripworks and a 50 pound bag of Sul-Po-Mag from Planet Natural. That should take care of most of my needs for the year as far as extras go. Other than that, the plan is for soybean meal in April, May, June, August, and September, and Milorganite in July and October.

Liming the Lawn

Well, the weather's fair for late February, if you can call 38° fair. At least it's sunny.

I picked up four bags of dolomitic limestone (about 20% calcium and 10% magnesium) today at Lowe's for about $4 each--I spend a bit more for the pelletized. That gets 22 lbs per thousand square feet down, which is about 4 pounds of calcium and 2 pounds of magnesium per thousand.

That should only be enough to move the pH of the soil about a tenth of a point, so I won't worry about it. Since I'm sitting at a near-perfect pH of 6.8, I have no desire to shift it around at all.

I also took the opportunity to drop 18 lbs per thousand square feet of Milorganite on the gardens so they have something to work with as spring starts up (shortly! I already have 200 sprouting early bulbs).

Last Year's Totals

I took the record of last year's totals, including what I did, and included it below for your perusal. Please note that my totals are very high as I'm trying to transform very poor subsurface clay into a decent environment.

For the columns the amounts are pounds per thousand square feet. N, P, and K are calculated off the item put down and the pounds used.

Only the total organic amount at the bottom (over a ton!) is the complete amount added.

I tend to use 2-1-2 (N-P-K) for Alfalfa, 7-1-2 for Soybean Meal, 5-2-0 (from the bag) for Milorganite, and 1-0-2 for Kelp Meal. Lime provides no nutrients, per se, but does release calcium and magnesium (I use dolomitic lime) over time.

Date	N	P	K	Organics	Iron	Other Notes
3/1/2008	0.39	0.16	0.31	15.7		Alfalfa
3/14/2008	0.12	0.00	0.22	11.5		Kelp meal
3/26/2008	1.20	0.40	0.00	20.0	0.80	Milorganite
4/10/2008	0.50	0.07	0.14	7.1		Soybean meal
4/19/2008	0.76	0.17	0.14	12.3	0.21	Soybean, Milorganite, lime
4/24/2008	1.50	0.21	0.43	21.4		Soybean meal
5/3/2008	0.25	0.10	0.00	5.0	0.20	Milorganite
5/7/2008	0.26	0.10	0.00	5.1	0.21	Milorganite
5/23/2008	1.48	0.59	0.00	29.5	1.18	Milorganite
6/7/2008	0.40	0.06	0.11	5.7		Soybean meal
6/21/2008	0.60	0.09	0.17	8.6		Soybean meal
7/4/2008	0.51	0.21	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
7/19/2008	0.51	0.21	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
7/26/2008	0.24	0.06	0.16	0		Miracle Gro, lime
8/2/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
8/4/2008	0.17	0.07	0.13	6.7		Alfalfa
8/16/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
8/27/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
8/31/2008	0.26	0.10	0.00	5.1	0.21	Milorganite
9/10/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
9/24/2008	1.00	0.14	0.29	14.3		Soybean meal
10/4/2008	1.00	0.41	0.00	20.6	0.82	Milorganite
10/12/2008	0.50	0.20	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
10/18/2008	0.50	0.20	0.00	10.3	0.41	Milorganite
11/1/2008	1.00	0.41	0.00	20.6	0.82	Milorganite
11/14/2008	1.05	0.10	0.67	0.0		Winterizer
Total per K ft:	18.20	4.62	3.90	307.6	6.09	2153 active organic total

Let the Games Begin!

There's an initial photo update on my Flickr Page. The color isn't fantastic, but it's starting to come along.

I've added 40 lbs of dog food per thousand square feet (Dad's dog food is pretty cheap--much cheaper than alfalfa is at this point), about a third of which went down today. I'll look to get that done before Wednesday when we get some rain.

Now I just have to keep the dogs off it!

More Photos!

Once again, on my Flickr page.

Things are doing very well (after 72,000 gallons of water this summer, they should be).

Soybean and Milorganite

I've actually applied two doses of soybean meal this month for a total of 28.6 pounds per thousand square feet. Today I'll add a bit of Milorganite just to diversify the mix a little bit.