Question
Hi Charlotte

Thanks, I will check with the company that sell the sod. I would like any information you can provide regarding an organic lawn. We have lots of problems with insects (worm like) here.

Linda
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The text above is a follow-up to ...

-----Question-----
Hi Charlotte, I live in Tampa FL and my front lawn needs to be re-sodded. I am replacing st augustine grass and would like to know if this time of year is ok. Any tips that you can provide for preparing the ground for the sod and how to ensure it catches this time of year would be great. Thanks in advance. Linda
-----Answer-----
Hi Linda;
I live in North Texas, and our climate is quite a bit like your's, but we do have freezes in the winter.
I don't know if you really have a cold season or not.
Best to check with the local nurserymen about whether or not you have time to get it to take hold, and develope a root system before it goes dormant.
If you have hard clay soil, or a lot of clay, so the soil does not have good drainage, then tilling in some bark mulch to loosen ip up would put you a little up on getting a good lawn.
If you plan to go on an organic program, which I highly recommend, then fairly poor soil will enrich fast and not be such a problem.
However, if it is really tight, then loosening it up would save you a lot of heartache.
I tried to search on the web to find the best time
in your area, but couldn't find anything that would tell me if it is too late there.
I would say you need at least a month at least before the first freeze can be expected.
If you need information on an easy to follow organic program that gets very good results, write me. I am very happy to share what I have learned.
Charlotte

Answer
Hi Linda;
An organic program makes a healthy enviornment for lawn critters like lizards, toads and grass snakes. Once these critters move into your yardd, they feed on all those insects.
Toads love slugs, and that makes the little things best friends of mine.
My lizards keep ALL the aphids off my roses, and th tent catapillars out of my trees.
Lizards toads and grass snakes all eat ants, and other little pests like grubs, army worms etc.
I just don't have inwanted insects, and I have been on the organic program for 8 or 9 years now.
All I have done until this lasy spring was put sugar on the lawn and water it in well, each spring and fall.
Iread that dry molasses was what to use, but if you couldn't get it, sugar would work too. The nurseries here didn't carry many organics then, so I had to use sugar.
When I could get the dry molasses, I used it one year, but I liked the results I got with the sugar better, so I went back to that.
Sugar doesn't really DO anything except nourish the beneficial microbes that enrich the soil. Weeds like poor soil, and will not grow in rich soil. When the soil is rich, the weeds that do come up, start to die out right away.
The first time I put down the sugar, I had a yard full of weeds. Clover, dandelions, crabgrass and johnson grass, dollar weed, wild violets, and some I couldn't identify.
I put dow about 4 pound per 1000 sq.ft. I pulled or dug out the weeds because weed killers are attractive to cats, and they will ingest them and die a terrible death, so I didn't want to put something that would kill the strays and neighborhood pets.
Anyway, a couple weeks after I put down the sugar, I noticed about half as many weeds as before.Neither my husband or I had pulld or dug a single weed.
I went into a frenzy like sharks feeding, rushed out and bought more sugar and put it down again, and watered it in.
I don't know if that helped or just wasted some sugar.
Anyway, every week when my husband mowed and edged, there were fewer weeds.
I put down sugar when it was time for a fall feeding.
The next spring, some weeds came up, but about half as many as the year before, and in a few mowings, they were all gone.
The next spring very few even came up at all, and then ever since, I have had no weeds.
Fertilizers feed all the vegetation growing in the soil, including the weeds, and then wears out and you have to reapply it. It doesn't enrich the soil. Fertilizers kill those beneficial microbes, and the beneficial insects that also feed on harmful insects.
For every harmful insect that will be attracted to your yard, there are hundreds of beneficial ones that feed on the harmul ones.
It is really very simple, just do it the way God layed it out in the first place, and let nature take it's course.
It took me over 40 years of working myself to death for mediocre results to get smart enough to try organics.
Really though, organic products or how to to dos were pretty scarce until the last 10 years or so.
Now, more people are becoming awar of the benefits ot organics and taking better care of the enviornment, so there are a lot of organic products on the market, and a lot more sources for klearning the around the house things to use.
For fungicide, I use 1 well rounded Tablespoonful of baking soda disolved in water in my garden sprayer, and spray my roses and other susceptable plants.
Since I have very rich soil now, I don't get the mushrooms and brown patch in my grass.
This last spring I started looking into some other things Howard Gerrett recommends.
I have tried the alfalfa meal and lava sand.
Both are very rich in nutrients.
I had to go to a feed store to get alfalfa meal, byt I get lava sand at the nursery and Walmart.
You just sprinkle it all over the yard, and water well. If you are tilling, or adding soil to a planter or container, or adding new soil anywhere, you can add some of either or both.
You can also may alfalfa meal tea but soaking 1 cup alfalfa meal per 5 gallons of water, overnight, and you can water plants with it, or strain it and put in in a sprayer to foliar feed.
It is good for houseplants too, and it helps blooming plants put out more and larger blooms.
Lava sand is full of all kinds of nutrients. That is what makes so many gorgeous flowers on islands where volcanoes have erupted.
It kils everything from the heat and ash at first, but when the area recovers, it is fertile and failrly springs alive with gorgeous vegetation.
If you sprinkle it over the yard, you just put a light covering all over. I broadcast mine by hand, just like I do the sugar.
Each spring, when it is close to time for termites to swarm, I sprinkle cedar bark mulch all over my yard, and put a trail of it about 3 or 4 inches wide and an inch or two high, around the foundation of the house and outbuildings.
That keeps termites away from the buildings, and all over the yard, it repels fleas and ticks.
I have 4 dogs, so I sprinkle it all over that yard every two or three months.
Cedar repels a lot of insects.
For fire ants, I used to chop orange peels and scatter them all over the yard. Orange oil is the main ingredient in effective fire ant controls, but since I have so many lizards etc now, I haven't done that for a year or two.
There are enough critters to eat all the anys if they come in the yard.
We have a lot of fire ants here, and my yard gets none of them.
Chopped lemon peels in your flower beds or containers will keep cats from using them for a litter box.
If you have bird feeders, you can keep squirrels out of the feeders by putting those chili seeds you buy in the spice department of the grocery store in the feeders. The ones you can put on pizzas.
They are hot and irritate the squirrels noses, but they don't bother the birds.
A good watering program is very important.
I always water to a depth of at least 6 inches to encourage a deep root system.
Deep roots help protect against heat, cold and drought damage, and prevents thatch.
With the earthworms and the other beneficial tunneling insects, I never have to aerate.
Our program is,,,
Sugar in the spring and fall, and water in well.
Mow and edge and water. Spray for blackspot and powdery mildew with baking soda at the first sign of new growth in tha spring, and after a hard rain in cool weather that could cause mold and fungus to grow.
Cedar bark mulch in spring for termites and fleas and ticks.
That's all I can think of right now.
If you have spoecific probelms that are not adressed here, write me, and I will get the answer for you.
I spend a fraction of the time and money having a gorgeous lawn, than I used to spend to have a mediocre one, and my Asthma is 90% better.
Charlotte