Question
Hi Charlotte,

I am in the second phase of a new lawn project.  I recently ripped up my front lawn to redo the soil and removed trees, and kudzu vines from the back lawn (the back was more like a mini jungle).  The yard looks forsaken but in an effort to have an AWESOME landscape, I am seeking your assistance in the next steps.  

My front lawn has a young growth of weed which I would like to remove.  I am thinking using a tiller/cultivator of some sort or the sugar concept.  After this is done I will have the soil tested and start the real work.

The back yard has some vine root remains and it too has weed and wild plant growth.  

At this point removing the weeds and wild plants economically is most critical.

Any help you can provide would be most appreciated.  Thank you.

Lars from Atlanta.

Answer

Hi Lars;
Don't remove the weeds, just mow them short, and till them into the soil.
Let them add nutrients to the soil to help the grass they tried to kill, grow.
I think that is good revenge for them being there.LOL
They have the same nutrients in them as any other vegetable matter, and they will compost right there in the soil.
Some of them may come up again, but that is no problem, the organic program will take care of them.
As the micro-organisms start to grow, reproduce and do their work, the weeds will start dieing out.
I don't have Kudzo down here in Texas, Thak goodness, but I imagine it will be affected the same as the other weeds.
Now, as far as doing the "real" work.
If the soil has a lot of clay and is tight, you need to loosen it up a bit. If it is very heavy clay, put 4 to 6 inches of bark mulch down. Till it up to an equal depth, at least.
4 inches of bark mulch will give you 8 inches of good,loose soil that will allow grass to grow well.
You want to till so you end up with a 50/50 mix of bark mulcjh and existing soil.
If you can find them, put some alfalfa meal and lava sand down to till in with the bark mulch.
you can put the sugar at this time too, and if your area is prone to fungus, apply 10 pounds Horticultural Corn Meal per 1000 sq.ft.
Al of this stuff, you are going to encororate into the soil, you just put down, till once to do it all at the same time.
After you finish tilling and smoothing it out some, water well to help it settle.
when it dries enough to walk on it, sow the seed or pay down the sod, water well, and keep it moist until your seeds sprout or you see new growth from the sod. Givbe it tnough water and mow when it gets high enough.
the "REAL"work, is that putting all the stuff down and tilling. then the labor of laying the sod, and the watering. If you have ben gardening the "conventional " way, with chemicals, the hardest thing to get used to is not having to work so hard in the lawn.
For quite a while, you will feel like there is something you are forgetting to do.LOL
I spent a good 10 to 20 hours a week on my soil all the years I used chamicals. I spend 1 or 2 hours per week now, and my husband spends about the same. But that is just in the growing season. After I put down my fall sugar and water it in, all I do until it starts to green up in the spring, is water if we don't get enough rain.
My husband mows and edges.
I put down the sugar etc, and I do the watering.
Anything else we do is planting shrubs, pruning roses etc.
My lawn critters eat the harmful insects, and the micro-organisms keep enriching the soil.
After a couple of years on organics, the soil PH balances itself out, so no ned for testing.
If you can't find the alfalfa meal and lava sand, any good organic fertilizer will do, but you don't necessarily need it.
All I did for the last 10 years, except for last year, was put sugar and water it in.
For a few years I had to scatter orange peels to keep the fiore ants away, but after the toad and lizard and grass snake population built up enough, there is no longer a need for that. The critters eat all the ants of any kind that come to the yard.
I used baking soda disolved in water to spray my roses, and crepe myrtles for fungus, but this year I tried the Horticultural tea. It works great.
The horticultural corn meal is also good if you have toenail fungus etc on your feet. Put a handful of it in a basin of hot water and soak your feet. That stuff REALLY kills fungus!!!
I have Diabetes, and I like to go barefoot, so I get very tough soles of my feet. Soaking them in a hort corn meal bath,. makes them nice and soft, and is very relaxing.

I use cedar bark mulch because of it's insect repelling properties. It chases fleas and ticks and a ton of other insect species, including termites.
It takes 2 years for it to compost, as opposed to 1 year for other hardwood bark mulches.
So that gives the organics an extra year to work on balancing the soil so that the clay is broken up.
Pine bark mulch isn't worh 2 cents a bag as mulch of soil addative. If you try to mulch with it, it blows around, washes away with rain. Cedar bark stays put.
Smells pretty too.
If you lay dos, or plug in the grass, keep some of the tilled soil to fill in between ther sod pieces and/or plugs.
About an inch on top of the sod will help the roots spread, and keep it more moist so you don't have any die off.
Just leave the blades sticking out enough to catch some son, and it will grow beautifully.
Always water to a depth of at least 6 inches after the grass starts to grow, to develope a deep root system.
A deep root systen will guard against heat, cold and drought damage and will prevent thatch, so you will never have to dethatch your lawn.
Leave the grass clippings to turn into compost and put more nutrients into the soil.
The only "WEEDS" you should ever have to pull or dig out are the trees that seed into your yard.
Trees love the rich soil, so when the seeds get to your yard, they are rteally going to grow.
Pull those little suckers up as soon as they show their little heads, so they won't have a chance to put down enough tap root that you will have to dig them out.
Pecan trees, if they are native to your area, are the worst. The tap root on pecan trees is twice as deep as the height of what is showing above ground.
The reason you aren'
t given exact amounts of organics to put doqwn, and we almost always say" about", is that if you get too much of the organic things you put on your lawn and garden, there is no danger of burning as there is with chemicals.
Your children and pets can be right out there with you when you are applying these things, and can get their little hands and paws in them with no danger to them.
I have to go to a feed store to get alfalfa meal.
Some organic fertilizers have some alfalfa meal in them, but the pure meal ( which looks and smeels to me like just ground up alfalfa leaves and stems) I have to get at a feed store.
Some people are writing me that the feed stores in their area don't carry it.
The feed store I go to carries a lot of organic lawn care products, so that may be why theu have it.
If you can't find it or the lava sand, no bother. I did great with neither of them fopr 10 years.
Make a compost pile or buy a composter, and put all the raw vegetable and fruit waste from the kitchen in it, along qwith leaves from the trees in the fall.
Our neighbors that are stubborn and won't go the organic route, rake their leaves, and bring my husband the bags of leaves. He adds them to the compost bins and makes a ton of great soil for his vegetable garden.
Our leaves that fall, he mows over several times to mulch them up, and just lets them stay on the grass.
He keeps the mower set at 3 inches, so the clippings sift down into the grass and don't show, and they just turn to good food for the grass.
Any more help I can bem, just write me, and I am very happy to share what I am learning still.
Charlotte