Question
Thank you so much for the info.   A few more questions if I may?
The fescues that sell at home depot, etc say they are for hot weather, drought resistance,etc.  Would i still be better off using St Augustine?   Also, I love the idea of using suger, but would this make for an ant problem?  Is agricultural cornmeal also good as a fertilizer?  If I do use sugar and then later decide to use a weed and feed type product would this create any problems?   How would I recognize thatch?  Is using a mulching mower ok at every mowing- to leave the clippings that is.   And last but not least  are insects less of a problem in certain ares?   I'm not sure i've had an insect problem  
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
I live in northern California, no snow, but very dry  hot in the summer, I have quite a few bare patches - many more in summer than now at which time bermuda grass takes up a good part of my lawn.   Is the suger treatment good for my/all areas?   Also any suggestions on the other problems?
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Hi Theresa;
The brown patches could be brown patch fungus, or it could be dead grass.
If you water just the top couple of inches at a time, the roots have to come to the surface to get water, and when they get up enough to be starved of water, or too hot, too cold etc, they die.
Deep watering will encourage the roots to grow deep.
I always water to a depth of at least 6 inches.
This deep root system protects against heat cold and drought damage, and prevents thatch.
If you water deeply, and you think it is a fungus, Agricultural corn meal will kill fungus.
Apply 10 to 15 pounds per 1000 sq.ft of lawn.
Sugar and all the organics will work everywhere. All around the world, and you don't have to do them at a certain time of year etc.
They take almost all the worry and work out of gardening.
Certainlt all the worry with weds and insects etc.
It sounds like you may have a cool season grass.
When you say you have more brown patches in summer, when the Burmuda takes over.
Ryes, Fescues and other cool season grasses will go dormant when the weather heats up, or they will just die out.
Perenial rye will come back the next year. I am not sure about the fescues. We don't have them here in North Texas. Too hot for themm.
Are you too far north to grow St. Augustine?
If you can grow that there, it will crown out the burmuda, eventually, and it greens up fast in spring and will stand hot summer heat.
Charlotte


Answer
Hi Theresa;
My daughter's name is Theresa.
We spell it the same way, and one of her teachers insisted on pronouncing the th like in three. It really bugger her.LOL
Using the sugar will not cause an ant problem because you water it in, so it is disolved.
Besides, when you have a healthy enviornment for them, lizards, toads and grass snakes will come to your yard to live, and ants are tops on their food prefference.
They will eat ALL the harmful and unwanted pasts.
Toads LOVE slugh, and since I have such a good herd of lawn livestock, I have NO grubs, army worms, slugs, aphids, or any of those other pests.
If you are on an organic program,and use some chemical fertilizer, weedkiller, or insecticide, you will cancel out the organics.
The reason is, those chemialcs kill the beneficial microbes, nematodes, and the critters, so it gives the harmful pests a clear field.
Agricultural corn meal will take care of the fungus, corn gluten meal is a good fertilizer, but I like alfalfa meal and lava sand better. They are full of nutrients.
My mower is not a mulching mower, so my husband goes over it twice to mulch up the grass clippings, if he doesn't mow soom enough and the clippings are a little too long.
Mulching mowers are a God send.
I always leave all the clippings down to compost and make food for the soil.
In the fall, he will rake up a lot of the leaves, and add them to his compost pile, but sometimes he just mows them in with the grass. The first ones that fall are dry and will chop up real fine. that just makes more nourishment for the grass.
Thatch is when roots come too close to the surface and die, and then they trap other debris, and form a waterproof pad, that will not let water soak through.
If you pour water and it just sets there and doesn'r soak in, then you probably have thatch ( ior very hard clay).
But if you have hard clay, grass roots won't grow through that, so you wouldn't have grass either.
Insects are less of a problem, some of them. Warmer climates usually have more insects, and more types of them, but if you are on organics, the little critters will eat them, so they are not a problem .
I don't care for Home Depot fot gardening plants or advice.
I bought St. augustine sod there twice and it was no good both times, and died out right away.
Their nursery plants are not as good a quality, and don't do as well, and all the advice I have ever heard from their people ( who are supposed to be degreed nurserymen, but I doubt it) has been very wrong.
All the sites I have looked up grasses for people around the country lists fescues as cool season grasses.
If others get St. Augustine to do well there, yu would be better off to stick with that.
Or go full swing with burmuda.
There are several burmuda varieties, and burmuda will grow almost anywhere, even in poorer soil.
The brown areas could be grubs.
Turn over a shovelful of soil, and if you see 6 or more grubs, then you have enough of a grub problem to kill the grass. They eat the roots underneath the soil.
I don't know if garlic pepper tea will bother grubs. I have never tried to see.
Bu if you have them, put a few in something, and disolve some ceyenne pepper, or jalapeno juice or something hot like that in there, and see what it does to them.
If you have grubs, and the hot stuff makes them go crazy, put 3 or 4 HOR peppers ( jalapeno, ancho, or any of the real hot ones. the dried hot chilic are good) in a quart of water in the blender etc, witth a couple whole bulbs of garlic, and blend till as liquid as you can get. the strain through cheese cloth etc to get all the tiny particlkes out that can clog up your sprayer. Mix 1 cup of that tea per gallon of water, and spray heavily with it.
I think I covered all, but if I left out some, or you have more questions, write anytime.
Ask as many questions as you like.
Charlotte