Grow Green with Ecolawns

If you believe the television commercials, then you need to add synthetic fertilizer to your lawn to make it lush and dark green. Adding a broadleaf herbicide to that fertilizer will allow you to have a pure turfgrass lawn, just like the local golf course. Having the greenest lawn on the block should be your life’s goal.


Balderdash! First, having a lawn is a choice. I did away with my front lawn years ago. It is a shallow yard, so I decided to spray it out with glyphosate (I used herbicide since our lawn was creeping bent grass and that is notoriously hard to kill) and be done with mowing and watering. I now have a simple, mostly native plants with reseeding annuals, and low water requirement garden. I haven’t regretted it for a minute since.

When I remodeled my backyard, 17 years ago, I reduced the turf to 20’x 30’. It’s just the right size for games and easy care.

Turfgrass needs one pound of nitrogen every month during the growing season. You can cut that amount by one third just by using a mulching mower. You can also cut down to fertilizing in March, June, and October, if you aren’t crazy about mowing constantly. I covered how I fertilize my lawn (once a year) in another post here. DO NOT OVER FERTILIZE! The excess fertilizer is carried by runoff into our streams and lakes; killing off aquatic life.

Lawns need one inch of water per week. That’s easy to do. Just choose one day a week and water your lawn until you have filled a tuna or cat food can full of water. In very hot weather you might want to add an extra half-inch of water. It is considered best to water early in the morning to reduce evaporation and the chance of disease. Don’t overwater; you are wasting your time and money!

Check with your local Cooperative Extension for the type of turfgrass that works best in your area. I was one of the first people in my circle to try out ‘ecolawns.’ These turfgrass/flower blends are a way to enjoy a lawn filled with the herbal look of old English estate gardens. The lawns at Queen Elizabeth’s garden parties are known for the chamomile mixed into the turf. It is that fragrance everyone identifies with meeting the Queen at the party.

I used ‘Fleur de Lawn’ a mix of dwarf PR8820 Dwarf Perennial Ryegrass, Lolium perenne, O’Connor’s Strawberry Clover, Trifolium fragiferum, Sweet Alyssum, Lobularia maritimaand, Dwarf Yarrow, Achillea millefolium, Wild English Daisy, Bellis perennis, and Baby Blue Eyes, Nemophila menziesi. It is a mix I would recommend, although any mix with Yarrow needs to be watched, as it travels into flower beds.

English Daisies in 'Fleur de Lawn' Hobbs & Hopkins Ltd.

The bag recommends seeding at 1lb per 1000 sq ft. Double that, Ryegrass is a clumping grass and needs to be seeded thicker to make a full stand.

The Sweet Alyssum and Baby Blue Eyes bloom the first year while the lawn is establishing itself. The Strawberry Clover, Dwarf Yarrow, and English Daisies continue on for years. I think the Daisies died out about eight years ago. There isn’t much Strawberry Clover left, but the Ryegrass and Yarrow are chugging along!

The best part of the lawn is that being a dwarf ryegrass, only six to eight inches high, you really don’t need to mow! Really, it is a nice sort of shaggy lawn that can also be kept mowed and looks very neat.

Nichol’s Garden Nursery in Albany, OR has an assortment of ecolawn blends that Rosemary Nichols and Tom Cook, a retired professor at Oregon State University, have perfected over the years. I found other ecolawn mixes at Hobbs & Hopkins, Ltd. Just type ‘ecolawn’ in your search engine to find alternatives to traditional turfgrass lawns.

Soils

Today I would like to talk to you about soil. Not dirt, soil. Dirt is what we track into the house from the garden. Soil is a dynamic system containing solids (minerals and biota) and pores (filled with gases and liquids) on which we build and in which we grow.


In my graduate class, Applications of Soil Science, our professor asked us to define ‘soil.’ That’s pretty much what I wrote above. A soils graduate student sitting in front of me wrote for 10 minutes (I read a book) and was peeved when the professor called ‘time.’ When the professor gave his definition it was slightly longer than mine and nowhere as long as the grad-student’s.

The professor wanted to make a point. To the general public the definition of soil is simple. And that was what the class was about; using our knowledge of soil science to work with the public regarding soil management.

Alright. Soil is a dynamic system; it is always changing. Containing solids: minerals; sand, silt, and clay; and biota; living and decomposing organic material (plants and animals.) Pores: open spaces between the solids filled with fluids like water; and gases like air, methane, etc. On which we build housing, roadways, etc. In which we grow plants (and we also build in the soil; tunnels, basements, etc.)


What most of us gardeners are concerned about our soil is the amount of sand, silt, and clay; and the pH, potassium, and phosphorus levels. I will discount the nitrogen levels since those are ever-changing as nitrogen in the soil moves from ammonium (NH4+) to nitrates (NO3-) back to ammonium back to nitrates etc. etc. etc. quickly and constantly.

The amount of sand, silt, and clay determines how easily our soil can be worked, how water retentive it is, and what we can grow. Sand is easily recognized by its’ visible size. Everybody knows sand. Silt is recognizable by wetting the soil and rubbing it between your fingers. If you can feel the particles then it is silt. Clay (not the pottery mineral) is slippery when wet.

An aside about clay. Our soil is clay. When it is dry it is as hard as a rock; great cracks form when it is not irrigated during the summer. When it is wet, it is like trying to walk on a slip ‘n slide. The day I ruptured my Achilles tendon; I tripped over the hose with my right foot, slipped in the clay mud with my left foot, falling face first in a mud puddle, and feeling the'window blind roll up’ in my left calf. It was the third time I had to wear a cast in August. Good times.

There are also mixtures of sand, silt, and clay based on the percentages of each found. For the most part, home gardeners just need to know their soil type so they can adjust their growing methods to the soil. Adding two to three inches of compost to your garden every year helps to ameliorate your soil and make growing conditions just right for your plants. If you have more questions about your soil check with your Cooperative Extension Office or the U.S. Geographical Survey web site.

To check for pH, just get a simple pH kit like Luster Leaf 1612 Rapitest pH Soil Tester. Most fruit and vegetable garden plants want to be in the neutral to slightly acid range. Adding compost and nitrogen fertilizer to any soil will reduce the soil’s pH and make it more acid. Just dust on lime (like the dusting of sugar on a sugar cookie) every year if your soil is too acidic. Raising a soil’s pH is a long term project. If you try to move too fast you may very well ruin your soil.

A friend of mine used to dump her wood stove ash on her garden area. After several years, she began to notice the garden was just not producing as well and her plants looked sickly. When the County Extension agent was over to check on their mint fields, she mentioned her garden. The agent was only too happy to look and see what the problem was.
One look and the agent told her the soil was too alkaline. Which was really odd since their farm was on some of the most clay soil around. Clays tend to be acidic. It took her several years of adding sulfur, nitrogen in the form of blood meal and bone meal, and mint compost to get her garden back to a closer to neutral reading. She had to make an ‘ash dump’ on her land. It is just a pit where she dumps her wood stove ash. It is away from her well and where it will not affect their mint crop.

Moral of the story: Moderation in all soil amendments!

To be continued……………..

If This Is January, It Must Be Catalog Time

It seems there are seed catalogs showing up at least twice a week.  Just subscribe or order from one and the next year you will be inundated with many!  This is NOT a complaint, I am in Wish Book Heaven right now.

It all started the day after Christmas.  Three catalogs.  I now have a box half full.  I have read everyone of them.  I know what I want to order again and what new I want to try.  Problem is, we are moving this summer.  We don't know where, Scott is applying for new jobs all over the country.  Even if he stays where his is, we will be moving to Marion County, across the Willamette River.  A shorter commute and a chance to shake things up!
So, no garden this year.  We have left gardens behind, before,  But we are now too old to put in all that prep work and not harvest.  I will try to start some pots of veg and fruits to take with us. 

Back to catalog fun!
My favorite catalogs are local ones:  Forest Farm, my step-mom Dorthy found this when looking for a fibrous begonia.  She passed the catalog on to me and I was hooked.  They used to have a paperback book size catalog (no pictures) but now have a magazine size catalog (still no pictures.)  Their website if very colorful and has fabulous pictures of their products.  I have been buying from Territorial Seeds since their inception.  They have great products and the prices are just right.  Again, the website is colorful and contains lots of information.
I think my first catalogs were Gurney's Seed, Henry Fields, and Burpee.  All of which I found at Grandpa Bill and Grandma Jo's house along with Organic Gardening and Farming Magazine.  (Okay they took most eveery Rodale Press publication way back in the early 1970's!)  Gone are the extra spcecial  seeds or plants at a deep discount.  And they don't always offer a free plant or packet of seeds with your order.  But, they have a wide variety and have been around since forever.
New, to me, catalogs this year: Raintree Nursery where you can find mini-dwarf, dwarf, semi-dwarf and full size trees.  I am salivating just thinking of a mini-dwarf Gravenstein Apple growing in a pot on the deck!  We lost our fruit trees to fire-blight about 10 years ago.  Since that fungus is in the ground, no more fruit trees here. 
Abundant Life Seeds, with a 'Moon and Stars' watermelon on the cover, has organic seed and is a sustainable agriculture advocate.  They have some great old seed types. 

Now, you've got your seed catalog, how do you choose which varieities to grow in you garden? 

• ask other gardeners in the area what they plant
• take note of what is grown for the county fair
• contact your local Extension office or visit their website for Extension Bulletins on home gardening*
• talk with local farmers at the Farmers Market
• read each varietal description carefully and make your choice from that

How ever you chose your plants have fun in seeing out the information and growing your own garden of delightful colors, shapes, fragrances, and flavors!


*Cooperative Extension Offices are wonderful ecducation resources for everyone.  Check it out.  I know my Extension sponsors Master Gardener Classes and they do a great job educating those Master Gardener on where to find all sorts of gardening information.  Yes, before getting my degree, I was a Master Gardener.