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/bee-lawn.html 
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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