2022 EcoEcho Lawn Work Plan
I
will continue as per last year, doing volunteer organic regenerative
agriculture lawn care with the electric and/or manual tools
(including mowing as mulching, along with edging, trimming and clean up
blower).
I will also be applying mycorrhizal spore to the
soil via backpack spraying to help the grass roots grow better, along
with pushing the manual push spike aerator in the lawn (so the
mycorrhizal fungi spore can live inside the grass roots as a symbiotic relationship).
Weeding
of crabgrass, etc. will be done only manually. The manual push
broadcast spreader will be used for grass reseeding.
Due
to its initial success last season, I will be reseeding the lawn with
only drought-resistant "Tuff Turf" seed mix. Due to our major lawn
repair needed, I plan to buy 13 bags of this seed mix as our main
purchase for the season:
This mixture has extremely good drought
tolerance and will perform nicely on a variety of soil
conditions. Tuff Turf will adapt to full sun and to reasonably
heavy shade conditions. It is best used where budgets
dictate that input levels are low and in fact low levels of
input are preferred.
Last
year I also used the manual broadcast spreader to apply a Minnesota
organic fertilizer on the front area lawn on both East/West sides and I
plan to do that again - once in late Spring and once in the Fall.
I
plan to also remove more Creeping Charlie with the cordless
electric dethatcher-scarifier tool that works well to remove Creeping
Charlie - and so I will be doing another round of Creeping Charlie
removal in the heavy areas in Spring - and then reseeding those cleared
areas with grass in the Spring.
The Twin City Seed grass
company also features the "bee lawn" seed mix that includes a native
Creeping Thyme, as promoted by the University of Minnesota
horticulturalists and promoted by the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil
Resources in partnership with Metro Blooms and Blue Thumb – Planting for
Clean Water.
https://www.twincityseed.com/
Minnesota residents can apply to be reimbursed for up to $350 in costs associated with establishing pollinator habitat in their yards. Individual Support grant recipients must provide at least a 25% match for their total reimbursement request.
So
we already created one bee lawn last spring with just a little extra
cost for the "bee lawn" seed mix. The native seeds take longer to
establish but the bee lawn seed mix worked well. That type of lawn mix
favoring the Creeping Thyme, stays very green even in drought
conditions. The friendly wild bees appeared very happy, along with the
frogs and rabbits.
The wasps in a high up tree wasp nest were also feasting
on the Fall boxelder bugs as wasps are now used for biological control
against other insects. That type of wasp does not nest inside but
prefers a high up location in a tree so they are not easily bothered.
The wasps also eat grasshoppers but the wasps mainly eat flies.
I
use an organic biological essential oil thymol soap applied with the
backpack sprayer for any other insect control. I also have a BT organic
bacterial spray for biological control of grubs if necessary, although I
have not used it yet.
The new "Tuff Turf" drought-resistant grass also resists grubs via a
symbiotic bacterial biological control.
The Fall leaf removal is mainly by mulching with the lawn mower so the
leaf mulch composts back into the lawn. Where the leaves are heavy then I
also use an electric vacuum-shredder that condenses the volume
for leaf mulch removal.
Finally in the Fall when the bees are done collecting pollen
and nectar, the pasture meadow grass will be cut back using a manual
scythe, a tool that is both ancient and surprisingly efficient, as long
as I sharpen it regularly.
Thanks for your support of my
volunteer organic regenerative lawn work with the goal that our grass,
by having deeper roots and healthy soil, will actually store more carbon
along with the grass being user-friendly.
drew hempel
p.s.
I promise to hunt down the moles as devotedly as Bill Murray hunts down
gophers. Well not really since moles are not nearly as damaging. Still
I'll keep looking into it.
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