Alright, we're giving our lawn service the boot, and I'm going to see if I
can make our lawn look as good or better than the lawn service could, at a
much better price of course.

I need advice from all of you lawn-care turf-grass fanatics out there. I
know I'll only do this on an ongoing basis if it doesn't take a lot of time
and isn't a pain in the you-know-what. So all advice on how to do this is
appreciated!!

I'm going to buy a good broadcast spreader to apply fertilizer 4 times this
year to our 1/4 acre Minnesota lawn. I want a broadcast spreader that is
going to be trouble free, easy to push and hopefully provide many, many
years of service. The cheap ones, I've learned, aren't worth buying. I've
been reading up, and it seems like the best ones have pneumatic tires,
stainless steel parts that resist rusting, and upper end gear boxes,
something like this Earthway broadcast spreader:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...e%26n%3D286168 .

Would this be a quality spreader at a decent price, or are there other,
better built or more dependable broadcast spreaders that I should consider
that don't cost a fortune?

Secondly, I need a good weed sprayer that has a high enough capacity that it
doesn't have to be refilled constantly, and I like the idea of the ones that
don't have to be pumped constantly. I couldn't find much info online about
what the best sprayers are, but this one on wheels, with a 4 gallon
capacity, that doesn't need pumping, seems to get good reviews on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...e%26n%3D286168 .

Is this a good sprayer, or is there a better one out there that has high
capacity and doesn't cost a fortune? Are there any commercial sprayers that
would work better? Are backpack sprayers any better?

Also, does anyone know where to get the best prices online, for either a
broadcast spreader or sprayer?

I'm planning to buy my fertilizer, and possibly weed chemicals, from a
farm-supply store, rather than at a normal retail gardening store. By buying
the more generic fertilizer and chemicals, I'm hoping I'll save a lot
compared to the $55 per visit that the lawn care companies charge. Does this
sound like a good battle plan? Anyone else saved a lot of money doing this?

Any advice, suggestions or feedback on my grand plan here would be
appreciated, as would any spreader or sprayer recommendations. Thanks in
advance for your help!!


DK

To get the best performance, I would suggest not using commercial
fertilizers, but an organic program with only emergency resort to any
chemicals such as fertilizers or herbicides. It sounds like you're
trying to maintain a fairly large lawn with golf-course quality
grass-only appearance, which is not very feasible - or good for the
soil underneath. Allowing some clover to intergrow, weeding pernicious
weeds by hand, and making sure to 1) let the grass grow at least four
inches, while never cutting it less than three, and 2) making sure your
mower's blade is always super-sharp are the two best ways to maintain
healthy turf.

Using this system, plus an occasional cheat of a 1/4" of compost (from
my community's recycling program, not dirt-cheap but cheaper than
fertilizer!), I was the absolute despair of my next-door neighbor, who
was retired and spent most of his time working on his lawn.... mine was
always greener, despite the fact I spent much less time fussing with it.

On 31 Mar 2006 10:46:50 -0800, "Samantha"
wrote:

To get the best performance, I would suggest not using commercial
fertilizers, but an organic program with only emergency resort to any
chemicals such as fertilizers or herbicides. It sounds like you're
trying to maintain a fairly large lawn with golf-course quality


To put it another way... you shouldn't be concentrating on growing
a good lawn, you should be concentrating on growing good dirt.

If you manage that, the lawn will take care of itself.

DK wrote:
Alright, we're giving our lawn service the boot, and I'm going to see if I
can make our lawn look as good or better than the lawn service could, at a
much better price of course.

I need advice from all of you lawn-care turf-grass fanatics out there. I
know I'll only do this on an ongoing basis if it doesn't take a lot of time
and isn't a pain in the you-know-what. So all advice on how to do this is
appreciated!!

I'm going to buy a good broadcast spreader to apply fertilizer 4 times this
year to our 1/4 acre Minnesota lawn. I want a broadcast spreader that is
going to be trouble free, easy to push and hopefully provide many, many
years of service. The cheap ones, I've learned, aren't worth buying. I've
been reading up, and it seems like the best ones have pneumatic tires,
stainless steel parts that resist rusting, and upper end gear boxes,
something like this Earthway broadcast spreader:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...e%26n%3D286168 .

Would this be a quality spreader at a decent price, or are there other,
better built or more dependable broadcast spreaders that I should consider
that don't cost a fortune?

Secondly, I need a good weed sprayer that has a high enough capacity that it
doesn't have to be refilled constantly, and I like the idea of the ones that
don't have to be pumped constantly. I couldn't find much info online about
what the best sprayers are, but this one on wheels, with a 4 gallon
capacity, that doesn't need pumping, seems to get good reviews on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/re...e%26n%3D286168 .

Is this a good sprayer, or is there a better one out there that has high
capacity and doesn't cost a fortune? Are there any commercial sprayers that
would work better? Are backpack sprayers any better?

Also, does anyone know where to get the best prices online, for either a
broadcast spreader or sprayer?

I'm planning to buy my fertilizer, and possibly weed chemicals, from a
farm-supply store, rather than at a normal retail gardening store. By buying
the more generic fertilizer and chemicals, I'm hoping I'll save a lot
compared to the $55 per visit that the lawn care companies charge. Does this
sound like a good battle plan? Anyone else saved a lot of money doing this?

Any advice, suggestions or feedback on my grand plan here would be
appreciated, as would any spreader or sprayer recommendations. Thanks in
advance for your help!!


DK

My experience, largely negative...
I got a Scott consumer grade broadcast spreader, like you can get at
all the stores. Not very expensive, but the little gate that opens and
shuts and regulates the flow from the hopper gets jammed often from
whatever I'm spreading. No problems with the wheels/gears/rotating
spready parts, though.
I got more than one sprayer, consumer grade; they're all retired from
deteriorating plastic in the wandy parts, due to some of the
horticultural oils I sprayed, i imagine (wooly adelgids, you know).
I don't know what kind of spreader will do better, but at least I can
recommend looking at that gate mechanism and maybe you can see that
some designs will be less jammable than others.
As for the sprayer, I guess I'd recommend going for something with more
metal and less plastic.

Goedjn wrote:
On 31 Mar 2006 10:46:50 -0800, "Samantha"
wrote:

To get the best performance, I would suggest not using commercial
fertilizers, but an organic program with only emergency resort to any
chemicals such as fertilizers or herbicides. It sounds like you're
trying to maintain a fairly large lawn with golf-course quality


To put it another way... you shouldn't be concentrating on growing
a good lawn, you should be concentrating on growing good dirt.

If you manage that, the lawn will take care of itself.

Yeah; high potency commercial artificial fertilizers end up leaving a
lot of waste ammonia in the soil, and as you can imagine that
effectively sterilizes it; so unless you've got a real need to "bulk up
fast", concentrate on creating and maintaining a renewable ecology, so
to speak.

You can get chicken poop fertilizer which is pretty good and not strong
enough to kill off the soil. Somewhat less potent and less frequently
seen is cottonseed meal (I think that's the name; cottonseed something
), but when the chicken flu hits the US next summer and chicken-based
products start to look scary, it's something to keep in mind.
Otherwise, the actual nitrogen fertilizing ability of "natural"
products is not too hot, even horse/cow manure, so conserve your soil
by using a mulching mower, or at least composting the clippings and
returning them; if you do compost, then you can toss in your fall
leaves, potato peels, etc. too. Let the grass grow on the tall side so
it can feed itself effectively, that also conserves water. The local ag
station tells us that rabbit poop (composted) is even better than
chicken poop, but I've not seen any commercially available, so find a
friend who raises rabbits.

The local university extension or state ag service might have a free
soil analysis which is a godsend if they give you advice.

As for weed killers and bug killers, you kind of have to give up.
Natural nontoxic bug and weed killers just don't work as well as the
artificial items, which can have undesirable side effects; but I find I
don't need artifical weed killers with a reasonably healthy lawn, and
I've got a favorite bug killer for special occasions.

I'm not big on weed killers, my main enemy is dandelions and my main
weapon is this gadget I got from Home Depot for $20 that you stomp on
and it plunges a bunch of nails down around the root and rips it out.
The virtue is that you don't have to bend over. After two summers of
rigorously working out my tensions after work on the little yellow
flowers, I'm pretty well dandelion free. The other side of the thing is
that a few dandelions do a great job of digging the nutrients out from
the deep soil below the grass roots and then you can compost them and
feed the grass, if they haven't gone to seed. Clover is not a weed,
btw, it's a benefit to the lawn, it produces more nitrogen than it
uses, if you have big patches of clover just leave it and if you have
creeping grasses (see below) the grass will move in by itself when the
soil is ready. Some organic-type fertilizers for the spring now contain
corn meal gluten as a weed seed germination inhibitor, it apparently
keeps little weed seedlings from rooting effectively if you treat the
lawn early enough in the spring. I don't know how effective is, but it
can't hurt.

As far as bugs, I'm not a devout tree-hugger, but at this point the
only "artificial" treatment I use is imidacloprid for fighting grubs,
because a bad grub infestation will really devastate your lawn in one
season and I haven't got any other bug problems. I'm not an expert, but
after investigating all the toxic bug products, I decided imidacloprid
is about the safest, and it seems quite effective. It's still under
patent by Bayer, comes under the name Merit sometimes; used to be in
Grubex, then they took it out for some kind of licensing reason, now I
think it's back in; anyway look for imidacloprid in the ingredients.
It's a nicotine derivative, and nicotine turns out to be a lot more
toxic to insects than other species (even earthworms, let alone
mammals) except a few species of fish, so in the amounts used for lawn
treatment it looks to be much safer than most of the insect poisons.
(They also use it in those once a month cat flea treatments, and cats
don't do well at all with toxins, so it's got to be relatively safe for
mammals) The catch is you have to be proactive and use it in the early
fall when the grubs are feeding but you don't yet know they're there;
most folks wait until the spring and see their lawn is dead, and then
go out and kill the grubs after the fact. But it's easy to tell if
you're going to have a bad grub year; if your screen door is covered in
those little brown chafer beetles in the summer at night with the porch
light on, it's time to buy the imidacloprid. If not, I let it slide.
They say to apply it by the end of September, but again the local ag
station has had decent results with it through midOctober. But you do
want to get them before they start to eat your lawn, not after they're
through.

Otherwise, about the only other advice is, if you're going to reseed
part of the lawn, just try to match the type of seed to the area. The
net has a few writeups on kinds of grass; you have to match your
general climate first, cold or warm, then realize that grass that grows
in the shade doesn't like to get stepped on and grass that can tolerate
being stepped on won't grow in shade. "Creeping" grasses spread out
underground and fill in holes in the lawn, but "bunching" grasses
don't, and won't invade your flower bed. If you get a match with those
characteristics, you can pick around for things like cold or drought
tolerance. And beware "annual" ryegrass (as distinct from perennial,
which is a standard lawn grass), which can be up to 90% of some mixes;
like the name suggests, it will die in the winter and not come back
next spring. Makes a good fall/winter cover for your vegetable garden,
though.

"DK" wrote in message ...
Alright, we're giving our lawn service the boot, and I'm going to see if I
can make our lawn look as good or better than the lawn service could, at a
much better price of course.

snip

something like this Earthway broadcast spreader:

I cn't comment on the particular spreader - mine is a tow-behind, generic
and it works fine.
I began doing all of my own work and it's a big money saver with nearly as
good results. It also,
puts down less fertilizer than the pros want to throw down. I'm only doing
spring and fall and some
spot shot on problem weeds like thistle. The dandelions aren't hard to pull
or, in the case of some
of the ones that won't die, I inject deeply into the root with vinegar.


Secondly, I need a good weed sprayer that has a high enough capacity that
it
work better? Are backpack sprayers any better?

snip

Also, does anyone know where to get the best prices online, for either a
broadcast spreader or sprayer?

You want more than I am familiar with.

I'm planning to buy my fertilizer, and possibly weed chemicals, from a
farm-supply store, rather than at a normal retail gardening store. By
buying the more generic fertilizer and chemicals, I'm hoping I'll save a
lot compared to the $55 per visit that the lawn care companies charge.
Does this sound like a good battle plan? Anyone else saved a lot of money
doing this?

Yup, see above.

Any advice, suggestions or feedback on my grand plan here would be
appreciated, as would any spreader or sprayer recommendations. Thanks in
advance for your help!!

I tried some of the more natural ways for two years and lost all of the
beauty of
my lawn. I used corn meal gluten and soy meal as recommended and it was a
steady
decline. I now use a comb of chems and naturals. In addition to the things
stated
above I use soy meal and a light dressing of mushroom compost. I'm thinking
of
converting to using a liquid compost tea using this product. The improved
'tea'
method is to put a couple of scoops of any compost into a 5 gal bucket and
fill with water.
Insert an aquarium aerator into it and let it cook in the sun for a couple
of days. Strain the
liquid and spray on the lawn. If you check the lawn forum on
www.gardenweb.com .
Be sure to do your own research instead of taking the word of a goober like
me.


DK

"Samantha" wrote in message
oups.com...
To get the best performance, I would suggest not using commercial
fertilizers, but an organic program with only emergency resort to any
chemicals such as fertilizers or herbicides. It sounds like you're
trying to maintain a fairly large lawn with golf-course quality
grass-only appearance, which is not very feasible - or good for the
soil underneath. Allowing some clover to intergrow, weeding pernicious
weeds by hand, and making sure to 1) let the grass grow at least four
inches, while never cutting it less than three, and 2) making sure your
mower's blade is always super-sharp are the two best ways to maintain
healthy turf.

Using this system, plus an occasional cheat of a 1/4" of compost (from
my community's recycling program, not dirt-cheap but cheaper than
fertilizer!), I was the absolute despair of my next-door neighbor, who
was retired and spent most of his time working on his lawn.... mine was
always greener, despite the fact I spent much less time fussing with it.


The best advice here is #1, never cutting the grass less than three inches.
Now, most folks look down at the grass after they've cut it, and three
inches are not going to look good. But: if you get in your car and drive
around the block, you will see the best looking yard on the block as you
drive back home. In other words, it's the distant look that will be
gorgeous with a three inch cut. However, all too often amateurs want to
look down and see the grass shaved to the ground and give in. The roots are
now in the sun and the slightest drought turns it brown instead of green.
So, resist the temptation and follow the thread above.

John