I Wet My Plants

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.

I talked to the horticulturalist from the City of Ottawa. Here are my questions and her answers:

Q: Should I put down compost first and then put down corn gluten meal (CGM) to help cover up the 10-3-3 fertilizer that I’ve already put down?
A: I don’t need to put down compost to cover the 10-3-3 fertilizer before putting down the CGM. I would only put down compost in bare spots after having put down the CGM if I wanted to seed a small area.

Q: If coffee grounds have an NPK value of 4-1-3, won’t that interfere with the effects of the CGM?
A: The CGM won’t be affected by the coffee grounds. Coffee grounds are great for increasing the organic matter of your soil.

Q: How ineffective will the CGM be since I’ve already put down 10-3-3 organic fertilizer? Should I put down more CGM for this spring’s application?
A: The CGM won’t be as effective since I’ve already put down fertilizer, however, since the CGM is also a natural fertilizer in about a week I will notice that my lawn will explode with growing grass from all the nutrients that I’ve added.

Other things I learned:

• There’s no difference between powdered and pelletized corn gluten meal. People prefer the pelletized one so that the product doesn’t blow away.
• I had my lawn machine-core-aerated this weekend. I should now be putting down coffee grounds to fill up the holes and to increase the organic matter. I should also rake up the plugs or have a lumpy lawn. In about a year, after putting down CGM three times a year as well as coffee grounds on a daily basis, I won’t need to core-aerate my lawn as it will already have a lot of organic matter.
• I bought two 50′ irrigation (soaker) hoses and I will need to experiment in the evenings how much I should turn on the water. She suggested marking the “OFF” position on the tap, starting with a 1/4 turn in the evening and then checking the end of the lawn with a trowel in the morning. If the lawn has not been watered, I should increase the water by 1/4″ turns.
• I should also spread gypsum (calcium sulfate) near the road and driveway to offset the salt damage from snow plows in winter.

And, apparently, I’m in for a lot of mowing this spring.

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.

I’m really good a harboring dandelions in my lawn. I’m surrounded on all sides by neighbors who love to spray their lawns every year with herbicides and pesticides, killing broadleaf plants and their brethren in one chemical swoop. The only safe haven appears to be an 8’ x 10’ area at the front of my organic lawn.

Nor very pretty, is it?  This area is right beside the road.

Every spring, after a heavy rain, I head out with my trusty dandelion digger committed to the goal that this will be the year that I dig up those yellow-headed, sun-greedy buggers that invade my lawn. I stab at the ground, snap off a partial taproot and give up after about half an hour. It’s a daunting task and I’m quickly overwhelmed.

I have to admit to giving more than a cursory glance to the bottles of Killex and WeedOut at my local nursery. I’ve even searched for the nearest WeedMan that services my area.

There must be a better, more organic-friendly way.

Enter corn gluten meal (CGM), a byproduct of corn that has pre-emergent herbicidal effects and also provides a nitrogen source over time as it breaks down. Proteins in CGM inhibit root formation on newly germinated seeds, effectively killing the plant before it can take root. Sounds pretty awesome, right?

Unfortunately, CGM doesn’t discriminate between the weeds and the grass - so don’t plan on seeding your lawn with grass seed and applying CGM at the same time. Also, there’s a small window of opportunity for this product. Applications usually are in early spring when crocus or forsythia bloom and again in autumn.

My one lonely crocus has bloomed and gone so I thought I was too late, however, a call to Make It Green Garden Centre tells me I’m not. They sell Turf Maize, and at $20 a tub including borrowing a spreader for free, I’m willing to give it a try.

At least it will fertilize my lawn and then the patches of clover can eat it and die.