Question
Hello,
I paid $900.00 to have my backyard professionally redone after removing an above ground pool.  The pool was already there when we bought the house.  There was a lot of sand and the Landscaper did not remove the sand he mixed it with the dirt.  I can still see the outline of the pool and the lawn is 20% grass and 80% weeds of different varieties.  How can I repair this damage.  I don't feel comfortable paying someone any longer.  I do not know anything about lawns, but am willing to do the work. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Every time you ask friends or nieghbors they advice is contradictive.

Answer
Hi again Cynthia;
I just read your feedback, and you can write me anytime you feel I can help.
After I put the sugar down and watered it in the first time, I started to see weeds go away, so I went into a frenzy like sharks feeding.LOL
I ran out and bought more sugar and put it down.
I am not sure whether or not that caused more results, or if it would have been as dramatic anyway, but fr the rest of that year, until fall, when I put sugar down again, all I did was water, and my hubby mowed and edged.
The next spring, more sugar, a good deep watering program ( at least 6 inches deep), and mmowing, and edging, were all that were done, for that year, and every year since until this year.
Tha5 was all it took to make rich soil that grew a grat lawn and garden.
This year, I read that lava sand and alfalfa meal are full of nutrients and will do more, so I have tried them.
They make a difference, but after 8 or 9 years of sugar each spring and fall, a good watering program, and my little lawn livestock doing such a good job, there just isn't that much room for improvement.
The alfalfa meal is great to make a tea to water your house plnats with, and you can use it on outdoor plants too.
You disolve 1 cup alfalfa meal per 5 gallons water, and let it set overnight, stir, and water your plants with it, or strain out the particles, and put it in a garden sprayer and spray plants to foliar feed.
It did make more and larger growth on my rose bushes, and larger and moire blooms. I watered my potted herbs with it, and they shot up quite a bit.
For fungus you can apply Corn Glutem \Meal about 15 to 20 pounds per 1000 sq.ft.
It is also a good feed, as it is rich in nutrients.
1 rounded Tablespoon of baking soda per gallon of water and sprayed on is what I have always used for fungus.
Since my organic program has been in full swing ( after the first year of sugar), the only fungus I have seen is the black spot that gets our rosed here, but a spraying in the cool damp months on the new growth takes care of that.
Write anytime. I am learning new stuff all the time, and very happy to pass it on.
Charlotte



Hi Cynthia;
Weed seeds get blown in by the wind, from being eaten and expelled by birds, and such ways.
The way to never have to deal with them is to make rich soil.
Weeds like poor soil, and will not thrive in rich soil.
If they come up at all in rich soil, they start to die out right away.
When the soil is really rich, weeds do not even bother to come up.
The best way ( really the only way) to make rich soil, and keep it rich, is to use an organic lawn care program.
Chemicals coase problems, they don't soive them.
chemical fertilizrs don't enrich soil, they put artificial nutrients in the soil that feed the vegetation, including the weeds. they have a growth spurt, and the fertilizer wears out, and you have to reapply it.
Just a vicious circle.
You have to use chemicals to kill the weeds, or manually pull or dig them out.
That is what ?I always did, after I learned cats are sttracted to weed killers,nad will eat them out of the containers stores in a garage etc.
All those poisons pollute the environment, and out water tables, kill birds and other beneficial animals and insects. The beneficial ones don't get a chance to make a comeback, because the new application of fertilizers etc kill them off, but the harmful ones are right back to torment us.
I battled that chemical treadmill for over 40 years, and workid so hard my knees and back are shot, and I only had a mediocre lawn, that I put in 10 to 20 hours per week, and I can't ven begin to guess how much money.
I switched to organics about 8 or 9 years ago, and I was totally shocked at the difference.
My neighbor never did anything with his lawn, and his weed patch kept all the lawns in the neighborhood seeded with every weed imaginable.
I pulled and dug, and couldn't stay ahead of them.
I had crabgrass, johnson grass, dollar weed, dandelions, clover, and a few I couldn't identify.
You couldn't go outside in june afetr sundown without being swarmed by June bugs ( Japanese Beetles). They are the adult of grub worms, which were abundant everytime we turned over a spadeful of soil.
phids on my roses, even though I sprayed once a month. Tent catapillars dropping on me from the trees.
I read in Our local newspaper ( The Dallas Morning News) in the organics column that putting dry molasses on your lwan would enrich it, and I knew make rich soil and no more weed problems.
It said if you couldn't find dry molasses, you could use plain table sugar.
I used the sugar, 4 pounds per 1000 sq.ft.
I was out front a couple weeks later, and there were about half as many weeds as before.
Neither my husband or I had pulled any weeds, but I also hadn't fertilized. I had bought it for my spring feeding, just had too much back pain to put it down.
The sugar doesn't do anything to the weeds,,,, what it does is, it nouriches the beneficial microbes that enrich the soil.
So I went into a frenzy and put down more sugar, and watered it in.
Couple more weeks, hardly a weed could be seen.
I did the sugar when it was time to feed in the fall.
The next spring about half as many weeds as the year before came up, and were not to be seen in two or three mowings.
The next year there were hardly any weeds coming up, and the next year, and since then, there are no weeds coming up at all.
Fertilizers kill those microbes. The sugar nourishes then so they live and reproduce.
For every harmful insect that will invade your lawn, there are hundreds of beneficial ones that feed on them.
Grass snakes, toads and lizards ewill be attracted to make their home in a healthy enviornment, and they feed on insects. Birds eat insects.
All these little guys make the best grounds crew you can get, and they work cheap.
I never see the grass snakes. That is fine with me. LOL
I do see a toad occasionally, and I see lizards running along the fence, up the tree trunks and in my rose bushes etc. I talk to the lizards, but I don't want to pet them.
I just make sure nobody puts anything down that will harm them, and they leave me alone.
I haven't pulled a weed, or put down insecticide or anything in the last 8 or nine years. All I have done is put down the sugar, water, my husband mows and edges.
The rest of the lawn work is planting and pruning. We have a thick, lush, dark green St. Augustine lawn that is insect and weed free.
No worms dropping down from the trees, no aphid damage to my roses. No June bugs swarming in the summer.
I look at my beautiful lawn, instead of working in it.
For fungus ( black spot on roses, powdery mildew etc) I use 1 rounded TAblespoonful of baking soda per gallon of water, and spray them with it at the first sign of growth in the spring, and after a hard rainy spell with cool weather, when fungii can form.
I even threw sugar in the alley for a few feedings, where poison ivy was coming up. No more poison ivy.
I also use herbs I grow to keep insects out of my house.
This spring, I started looking into more organic things to do, and have learned a lot.
I am very happy to share all these things with you.
For now, just go and buy some big bags of sugar, enough to put 4 pounds per 1000 sq.ft. broadcast it, and water it in well.
I just broadcast mine by hand.
You don't have to get an exactly even coverage, and if you spill too much in one spot, it won't burn your grass like the chemicals will. Just throw it down., and water it in.
That will start the ball rolling right away.
Write me with specific pest problems you have, or other questions you can think of, and I will answer them for you.
This organic program is so easy to follow, guives such great results. I sure wish I had known about it over 40 years ago.
I wouldn't switch back to chemicals for anything.
Since going on the organics, my Asthma and allergies are 90% better too, and I don't have to worry about what my grandchildren or my pets put in their mouths. Children and pets do put grass blades in their mouths.
I have an organic, no harm to anything remnedy for every pest problem in the house or garden, that you can think of. I have really researched that, and gotten a lot of information.
Charlotte