Question
QUESTION: We recently had a landscaper level part of our wooded area behind out house. He built the area up by bringing in top soil and built a stone wall as a retainer wall.  He then laid down sod. We have watered it daily for a week and a half now.  I don't know if we are watering it too much and if their is any other type of care it needs right now.  This is all pretty new to me.  I wandered, also, how soon we should mow it for the first time.  It is green and looks healthy, but their are some little weeds ( I think they're weeds) coming up in it as well.  Should I do anything about the weeds right now?  Any information you can give me about how to care for this sod, I would really appreciate.

ANSWER: Hi Melody;
You don't say what kind of sod he put down. If he put St. Augustine, unless you are keeping it submerged in water, it is not too much. That stuff will grow in a swamp, I think.
A week and a half is a little soon to see much growth.
It has to put down roots first, and they have to get established before it will start to grow.
Mow it when it gets too ghigh.
If it is a type of gras that spreads by sending out runners. like St. Augustine, bermuda etc, mowing it at abiout 1-1/2 to 2 inches will make it use more food for new roots.
If it is thick enough, I would mow it when it gets 4 or 5 inches high, and mow it to about 3 inches.
I don't agree with the ideas now of mowing bermuda at 1-1/2 to 2 inches and mowing every three days.
I don't want a golf course in my fromt yrd, I want a soft lawn, so I always mowed my bermuda to 3 inches high, after the temps get up in the upper 80s. The taller blades shade the soil from the heat.
I live in North Texas, and our summers get HOT. Grass cut so short shows a loit of stress.
I want mine thick and green all summer.
Here is the program I have used for the last 10 years.
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You will constantly improve your soil if you go on a totally organic program, and don't use any chemicals at all.
I have beenm on such a program for the last 9 to 10 years, after breaking my back and ruining my body trying to maintain a decent lawn, with only mediocre results.
the organics has freed me from about 90% of the physical work, about that much of the expense, and the results are a think, beautiful yard with no weeds or harmful insects.
Man!!! Wish I had known all this 50 years ago !
The corn clutem meal is an organic product.
If you use organics, and then use chemicals, you will cancel out the organics.
Chemical fertilizers kill all the beneficial microbes, nematodes and other beneficial insects and critters that work around the clock improving your soil.
Beneficial microbes enrich the soil. Chemicls do NOT.
If you put a little too muchj chemical products on the lawn, it will burn your grass, and do a lot of other damage.
If you put too much organics on it, all you do is waste a little time and money.
Sugar does absolutely nothing but nourish the beneficial micrebes. THEY do the work.
Weeds will not grow in rich soil. If they cme up, they will start to die out right away.
The first time I use sugar was in the spring. I had not put any chemicals on the yard since the fall feeding, so they were all worn out of the soil.
I had a lawn about 50% full of dandelions, crabgrass, johnson grass, clover, dollar weed and some other shallow rooted weeds like chickweed etc.
a couple of weeks after I put down the sugar and watered it in, I had about half as many weeds. Nobody had pulled a weed or anything. My husband had just mowed.
I went nuts, like a school of sharks in a feeding frenzy, and ran out and bought more sugar, put it down and waterewd it in.
A couple more mowings, and there were so few weeds. In a few more werks they were all gone.
The next spring about half as many weeds as before came up, but in a few weeks they were gone.
All I had done was the sugar in the spring, and I did that again in the fall.
I used baking soda disolved in water for black spot on my roses and powdery mildew n my crepe mytrtles. That works much better then the chemical fungicides I had used before.
I started getting a nice herd of lizards, toads and grass snakes in my yard.
I had a BIG grub problem every year. I haven't had that since, nor do I have those nasty tent catapillars dropping on my head from the trees.
I see lizards running in the trees and along the fence. I never see the grass snakjes, which is fine with me. I seldon see a toad, but they are all there.
Sugar; I use 4 or 5 pounds per 1000 sq.ft. I just broadcast it by hand, and water it in well. If you spill a blob in one spot, no problem. No burning or other damage.

Watering; I always water to a depth of at least 6 inches. Deep watering like that encourages a deep root growth. That protects from heat, cold and drought damage, and prevents thatch. I water with soaker hoses, and run them till the water is close to the edge and is about to start running off the yard. then I turn it off and wait an hour or so for it to soak in, and turn it on again. I keep doing that until it is wet down to a depth of 6 inches at least. Even here in our Texas heat, I water only once a week, unless it stays well above 100 for a week or more, which it sometimes does. then I look at the grass, and if my St. Augustine is folded up, lengthwise, I know it needs water. It folds the blades up to reduce the area exposed to evaporation. Burmuda, when it gets thirsty, bends it's little blades a little, like it is bowing.
My earthworms and cock roaches etc tunnel through the soil, and that keeps it aerated. Their castings add nourishment. Cockroaches are beneficial. They normally live in the soil and feed on other harmful insects. We put down pesticides, and kill their food supply, so they come in our houses to get food and hide from the pesticides.
I use fresh rosemary to keep them out of my house.

Baking soda disolved in water, about 2 TABLESPOONS per gallon of water, sprayed on top and underneath all the leaves, prevent molds and fungus on plants. You can also use it for fungus in the soil, or you can apply agricultural corn meal and water that in. About 10 pounds per 1000 sq.ft.

Corn gluten meal is an organic fertilizer and weed killer.
It won't interfere with the sugar.
None of the organics calcel each other out.
Alfalfa meal is another good food to add. Just sprinkle it on in about the same thickness the sugar goes on, and water. It is full of nutrients. So is lava sand. Yopu can add it to the top of the soil, dig it into the soil, or add it when you are adding soil, or putting soil in a comntainer for a plant.
Alfalfa meal, as well as generally nourishing the soil, helps promote larger and more blooms in blooming plants and house plants.
You can also make a tea of it for foliar feeding or for watering house plants.
Put 1 cup alfalfa meal in 5 gallons of water and let steep overnight. Still and use to water plants, or strain it and put it in a garden sprayer for foliar feeding.  Be sure, if you strain it, to dump the dregs on the soil somewhere, it is still full of nutrients.
You probably won't need more fertilizert than that. I didn't use anything but sugar for about 8 or 9 years, and last spring, I leartned about the alfalfa meal and lava sand, so I use them.
If you have more questions, write to me.
I am very happy to share what I have learned, and am learning.
Charlotte


---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: I love the idea of the organic program, but I'm not sure I want green snakes, lizards and toads in my grass.  We have grandchildren that will come over and play in the grass, I wouldn't want them to be scared to get in it because of a snake, etc.  Is there any way to do an organic program without them living in my grass?  Thank you for answering my previous question and all the information.  It is so helpful!  Thanks again!  

Answer
These critters are a necessary part of the ecology, and they will gravitate to safe enviornments.
My grandchildren love to watch the lizards. We don't see the grass snakes. When they hear footsteps etc, they scoot for cover, so as not to be harmed.
Toads don't socialize with people either.
Myself? I cannot bear to even look at a snake. Just seeing a harmless little grass snake slithering along sends shivers down my spine.
I would die if one touched me, same with the toads and lizards.
The lizards are more sociable. Apparantly they are not as afraid of us, so they will stop and listen sometimes when you talk to them.
My grandchildren are taught to leave them alone, just watch them, because they take care of bad bugs, and they are a life, and due respect.
Children are not born with a fear of little critters like this, we TEACH it to them.
It is educational for the children to go on a critter hunt in the yard, to observe how they live, what they do.
My grandchildren are now helping me make toad homes, so the toads will have a cool damp place to get away from the heat this summer.
I am a ceramist, so we are making cute little houses that are big enough for a couple of toads to be in, and we set them in among the shrubs ( the ferns make a nice place for them), and mzke sure it is moist and cool when they weather is hot.
My grass snakes are not green. They are a sort of dark borown or black, with a couple of white or yellowish stripes down their length. I Don't look closely enough them. When I am going into ground cover or somewhere one might be, I rake the top of the plants with a stick, to warn them sao they will scoot away and hide. I DO NOT want to run into one.LOL
One ran across the toe of my shoe once, and I almost mowed down my trees getting back to the porch.LOL
I am NOT a slithery critter person.
Without the critters to eat your harmful insects, you would have to use insecticide, and that will kill all your micro-organisms.
Charlotte