Question
Hello Charlotte,

I live Canada (Montreal, Quebec) where the climate is a little colder than your area and am wondering if your sugar recipe will work here.  Also, I'm just curious to know....how come using sugar on lawns is not so well known and why aren't more people using it?  Other experts say it is totally useless.
My grass had a serious problem with chinch bugs a few years ago and still have that problem today but not as much.  Now I've also noticed some areas with lots of grubs.  Needless to say I have several dead patches of grass.  I did have a company fertilizing my grass for past few years but pesticides are no longer legal as of last year.  Time to go organic.
I'm still debating whether or not to use sugar butI guess I have nothing to lose except a few dollars by trying it and see what happens.


Answer
Hi John;
All the sugar does is feed the beneficial micro-organisms that work round the clock enriching the soil.If the weather affected the sugar, I would have candied grass.LOL
It gets hotter than Hades in the summer here.
For it to stay 110F for several weeks is nothing here, it does it almost every summer.
If there are ANY kind of lizards, toads, and grass snakes that eat insects that live in your area, the organic and healthy enviornment will attract them to your yard, and they will eat all the harmful insects.
Toads LOVE slugs and snails. That makes the ugly lil critters best friends if mine.
Lizards, grass snakes and toads eat grubs.
Grubs were a BIG problem for me before I went on the orgaincs.
Now, digging in the soil, I see maybe, 3 or 4 grubs per year.
I used to find a whole slew of them just turning over a shovelful of soil.
I am not sure which of my critters eat the grubs, but they are no lnger a problem at all.
I KNOW the lizards ( I have 2 kinds) eat ALL the aphids off my roses.
The organic program works anywhere.
As for whether or not to use the sugar.
What I read, 10 years ago, was to use dry molasses. If you couldn't find it, plain table sugar was a suitable substitute.
I had to use the sugar for about 4 years, then my nursery got in some dry molasses. I used it in my spring and fall feeding, and saw a few weeds come in the net sporing, so I went back to the sugar.
Here the dry molasses and sugar cost right about the same per pound. You use 4 or 5 pounds of sugar poer 1000 sq. ft. and you use 10 pounds dry molasses per 1000 sq.ft.
I can buy the sugar when I shop for groceries, and don't have to go to the nursery to get it. I get 10 pound bags. I am 72 and mostly disabled, so that is much easier for me to handle than a 40 pound bag of dry molasses. I like the results I get with the sugar better, and besides, if I don't go to the nursery, I don't come home with 100 to 200 dollars worth of stuff that I am probably NOT going to get all of planted in time.LOL
The other experts say using sugar is totally isel;ess, but the scientiific studies in Agricultural  Colleges has tested and proven the dry molasses etc. The sugar is just the same thing.
Some say use beer. Some say use Bourbon.
Well, beer and Bourbon cost a LOT more than sugar, and it is the SUGAR used in the making of them, that make them benefit the grass if poured on it. DUH!!!
I have told my grandchildren if they are drinking a soft drink and don;'t want to finish it, DON'T pour it down the sink, take it out and pour it on grass, garden, or even in an indoor plant. The sugar in it benefits, because it nouriushes the microbes.
Sugar is TOTALLY useless as a fertilizer, weeds killer or anything like that. It's SOLE purpose is to nourish the beneficail microbes. It is these microbes that do the work , enriching the soil.
Like, if you bathe in milk, it will NOT make your bones strong, but if you drink it, it will help build strong bones.
You eat foods to provide your body with what it needs to nourish the glands and organs to make you grow.
These beneficial micro-organisms is what makes the soil rich. THEY need to be fed. Sugar gives them the nourishment they need.
Try it for a few seasons and you will see.
There are some things you can use to put additional nutrients in your plants, such as alfalfa meal, and lava sand. ?Both of these things are full of nutrients. NOT nutrients for the lil nseeum workers under the soil, but the plants themselves.
Horticultural corn meal is a VERY good fungicide, that does NO harm to your organic enviornment. Baking asoda disolved in water is also a good fungicide, as is Hydrogen peroxide, but that could get really expensive to use on a wide scale.
I have used baking soda for years, with good results for black spot on my roses, and powdery mildew on some of my susceptable shrubs, but I have some Horticultural corn meal tea brewing not to spray n my roses and shrubs to see how well it works.
Because of a LIT more rain and later cold weather we have had, my roses are almost totallt exfoliated because of black spot.
It rains, and before it gets warm enough for me to get out there and spray them, it rains again. It stays dank and sunless, so the blackspot has really gotten a boost. First time in the 10 years the black spot has gotten ahead of me.
Here is what I have used for the last 10 years, and until last spring, I used NOTHING but sugar in the spring and fall, and sometimes in mid-summer, and baking soda disolved in water, and I have had NO weeds for tha last 8 years or so, so it MUST work, and because of all the little critters that it is safe in my yard for, I have had no insects.
Charlotte


Charlotte