Monsters in the Grass
May 15, 2007
A couple of weeks ago I bought the WeedHound, a nasty-looking tool in my arsenal of weapons against my sworn enemy, dandelions.
Here’s the weeder, in the open position, when you push it into the ground:
Here’s the weeder after you pull up on the handle to grip the taproot and rip it from the earth:
The best time to weed is after it has rained as the ground is wet and the weeds are easier to pull up.
Today it rained. And my WeedHound was trotted out to begin its duty. Here is a monster weed that was pulled from the ground by my boyfriend, a whopping 14″ taproot.
Die dandelions. Your time has come.
The Lawn
May 7, 2007
After further consultation, I have decided against corn gluten meal (CGM) for this spring as I’m past the window of opportunity for spreading it. I plan on using it in the fall before the grass goes dormant. My lawn is in bad shape with many dandelions, ants, patchy areas and clover. After talking to one of the very helpful horticulturalists at Make It Green, I had a plan. Here’s a list of stuff I did get:
- Weed Hound
- Chemfree’s Insectigone ant killer (a powder containing diatomaceous earth)
- four 30 litre bags of organic garden soil
- organic spring lawn fertilizer, NPK rating of 10-3-3
- Eternal Green’s classic grass seed with mycorrhizae
Day 1: I wandered around the lawn dusting any anthills with ant killer. I’d crouch down, send a poofy spray of powder and watch the ants freak out. Diatomaceous earth is a sedimentary rock that is crumbled to a fine, white powder. This powder absorbs lipids from the bodies of ants, causing them to dehydrate. They did react to it once I put it down and there were no ants outside the anthills after a couple of hours.
I also gave my WeedHound a test drive, however, the results were not optimal as the ground was dry. I am now waiting for the first rain to soften the ground to make weeding easier.
Day 2: Checked up on the areas where I had sprayed the ant killer and was surprised to see ants rebuilding their homes. Those little bugs just won’t die.
Day 3: My boyfriend gave the front and back lawn a hard raking while I followed and sprinkled the four bags of organic garden soil. There was a lot of dead grass. We dumped the organic lawn fertilizer into the spreader that we borrowed for free from the garden centre and made two passes over the lawn from side to side and top to bottom.
Upcoming: I decided to wait on spreading the grass seed, as there’s still a chance of frost in my zone. The grass seed I bought is a Canada’s #1 mix (which is a premium mix) with mycorrhizae, an organic fungi. It also has less Kentucky Bluegrass which bugs apparently really like. In a few days I’ll overseed the lawn with the grass seed and water it to encourage growth. I’ll also give it a light raking to help mix the grass seed into the soil.
