Question
Yes, I would like to know more about organics and anything you can share would be appreciated.

As for my lawn, I have a few more questions please.

1- Where do you live?
2- Are you applying sugar to St. Augustine or some other kind of grass?

3- Are you saying that all you use is sugar and it gets ride of weeds and bugs? Chinch bugs, grubs,sod webworms are all big problems where I live and I am suffering big damage right now.This is why I am in a panic right now.

I have never seen so much trouble in my lawn, crabgrass, weeds, bugs and finally Bermuda grass!

4- Do you have anything to share about kiling Bermuda grass? It is spreading rapidly throughout my lawn. Last year it looked good, this year is a nightmare.

Thanks for all your help
Tom




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Followup To

Question -
Ok, thanks for the reply. My problem is I just hired a lwan service. I thought you wrote that sugar would still work and merely make the fertilizer work better?

Final question - I just bought the sugar and I am now wondering how you spread it and at what settings/rate. I have a hand spreader and a push spreader. Tne pounds of sugar would dispense quickly in a spreader so I am guessing you dont put that much on?
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Followup To

Question -
Hello

I read what you say aobut sugar and am convinced enough to try it. I have a few questions though.

1- Will sugar atract ants and other insects? We have loads of ants in Florida

2- Our soil is sand and my yard has patricularly poor soil/sand. Will sugar work with this type of soil?

3- I now have a crabgrass issue and read about baking soda too.... Should I use both sugar and baking soda?

Thanks in advance :-)

Answer -
Hi Tom;
The sugar doesn't attract ants because you water it in well, so it is disolved.
You have to go totally organic for it to work though.
fertilizers kill the beneficial microbes that enrich the soil. It is the rich soil that keeps the weeds out. weeds love poor soil and won't thrive in rich soil.
The sugar nourishes those microbes, and they work round the clock enriching the soil.
the weeds will start disappearing in a few w=mowings and waterings after you put down the sugat, and none should be showing in a couple of months.
some will come back next year, but fewer. As the soil gets richer, fewer weeds will even come up, until you don't see any at all, except for the little trees that get seeded into your lawn. they are not weeds and love rich soil, so you will still have to dig those out.
I had crabgrass, and it took about the 3rd or 4th year before none of it showed up at all, and for the rest of the 8 yewars I have been using sugar in the spring and fall, there have been NO weeds come up.
At least if they ARE coming up, they don't last long enough for me to see them.
If you use any chemicals, you will undo the organics benefit.
chemicals chase out and/or kill the toads, lizards etc that feed on harmful insects. Make a healthy enviornment and they will repay you by eating all the harmful insects that come to your lawn, including ants, slugs, grubs. Toads LOVE slugs. That makes them good friends of mine, so i make little toad houses so they have a comfy place to stay in the cool, dampness and look for food.
My lizards eat all the aphids off my roses.
I don't see the toads and grass snakes, but the lizards are not as shy, and i see them along the top of the fence, and on my tree trunks etc, and i talk to them. I don't pet them, YEEEEK, YUUUCKKKK. LOL
Baking soda is for a fungicide.
You can also get corn gluten and put it all over your yard. It kills fungus and also add nutrients.
Charlotte

Answer -
Hi Tom;
No, fertilizing kills the microbes.
If you water very well, to flush some of those chemicals out, then treat with sugar, it should revive some of the microbes. I would treat it again in about 2 weeks, to get them going good.
All I have put on my yard for 8 years is sugar in spring and fall, watered deeply to make a deep root system, and mowed and edged.

Chemicals CAUSE problems, they don't SOLVE them.
Since I went on total organics, my Asthma is 90% better, in spite of our pollution we get blown our way from Dallas.
I am also organic in the house. I use fresh rosemary and lavender that I grow, and I have NO roaches, spiders, silverfish or earwigs. Those are the only bugs i had a problewm with before.
I put a sprig about 1 inch long, of rosemary on each cabinet and pantry shelf, and a longer piece under every appliance, and in the bathroom vanity cabinets.
The lavender is also very good for relaxing, so I spray some lavender spray, or I make carpet dust witrh epsom salts ground finer in my food processor, and a few drops of lavender. Enough to scent the room after it is sprinkled down and workjed into the carpet.
I keep fleas and ticks off my four dogs, organically, and I put out mosquito plants to repel mosquitoes. They WORK!!
I have a large contaioner with lavender planted in it at each entrance. that keeps houseflies from coming in when they dopors are open.
I use organics to keep away termites, and in 40 years ( I have been using it that long) we have never had to call and exterminator, or had termite damage. My neighbors have though, but they won't listen and get onto organics.
While they are oput fertilizing, weeding, sprying insecticides, and working their bunns off, I am sitting have a nice relaxing cup of coffee and looking at my pretty yard.
Charlotte
If you want to know more about organics, write me. I am happy to share what I have learned.
Charlotte


Answer
Hi Tom;
I live in north texas, in the Dallas area.
I have St. Augustine in the front yard, and there is some burmuda mixed in in the back yard.
I had burmuda when we bought this house, and we plugged in st. augustine. In a few years, it crowded out the burmuda.

 The sugar doesn't KILL anything. what it does is nourish the beneficial microbes that enrich the soil.
The rich soil is what gets rid of the weeds, because weeds won't thrive in rich soil. They like poor soil.
the using organics and no chemicals makes a healthy enviornment for toads, lizards etc that feed on insets.
The don't do any damage to your lawn or plants, but they eat all the insects that are attracted to your yard.
I never see the toads or grass snakes, but i see my lizards, and I have a ton of them Nice big fat ones.
I see then run along the fence where the climbing roses are, and along the tree branches and trunks. I talk to them, and sometimes they will stop and look at me and listen. then scoot off again.
I don't TOUCH things like that.LOl
All I have used is sugar, for the past 8 years, and that hass been enough. The microbes have enriched the soil till weds no longer even try to come up.
I had poison iny in the back alley. I am not bothered by it and can handle it with my bare hands and not get a reaction to it, so i just kept it pulled up. after my grandchilden came up with rashes from it. It was groing in the fence line, where the honeysuckle is, and we figured it was because the dogs get right in the honeysuckle, and maybe they were getting it on their coats, and the children were geting it from petting the dogs.
anyway, I threw sugar out there after I pulled it al;l up one year, and treated that area again in the fall, and went dwn the alley throwing sugar on wherever I saw it, when we had a rain predicted that would wash it in.
a couple seasons of that, and the poison ivy was gone, and we have not had a problem with it since. there was no one putting chemicals on the soil in the alley, so the microbes could thrive there and enrich it.
  If you don't have lizards, after all the dangerous chemicals are out of your yard ( after a good watering), you could buy some anoles at a pet store and release them in your yard to start eating bugs.
Be sure to get a pair, so they can producre babies.
I guess you could by grass snakes too. I an deffinately NOT a snake person, so I have never looked at what kinds of snakes Petsmart has, if any.
Believe it or not, even cockroaches are beneficial.
What I have learned is, they naturally live in the soil and feed on some insects. I suppose it is the very small mites etc. anyway, they live in the soil, tinneling through and aerating, and eat insects.
When we put insecticides on the soil, it kills their food supply and threatens them, so the move into our houses to get food and a safe place to hide.
Use fresh rosemary to keep them out of the house.
I put a piece of rosemary about 1 inch long on each pantry and cupboard shelf. don't forget bathroom vanities.
I put a little longer piece under each appliance in the house, and throw a piece in the corner of closets.
I buy cedar oil in the health food stores. a tiny bottle costs from 6 to 10 dollars, but it lasts me a year. I paint a line of it on the clothes rods, and along the baseboards. Cedar repels a ton of insects, inckuding termites.
Lavender repels houseflies. It's aroma also helps you get relaxed and fall asleep better and sleep more restfully.
I buy lavender oil, and Epsom Salts. I get a bag of epsom Salts at Walmart for about 3 dollars, and it is about a half gallon size. I put about 3 inches of it in a large half gallon pickle jar that I saved for that purpose, and put in about 1/8th tsp lavender oil. then continue layering like that untill I have used all the salts. I color it with food coloring ( the little cheap liquid kind you buy in thre grocery store, NOT Wilton).
I shake it a long time or stir it until it is thoroughly mixed. I have my own bathroom, and it is girly, so i put it in pretty decanters I pick up at yard sales, and have all sorts of bath salts this way, for very little money. I also make it scented with my colognes.
I doubt a guy would care to color it, but it makes a very relaxing bath, and Epsom salts DO rlax tired or sore muscles.
I have a large container beside each entrance, planted with lavender. It keeps flies from coming in when they doors are opened.
I don't know if it is one or a combination of all, but i don't have spiders, earwigs or silverfish since i added the lavender and cedar.
When I first put the lavender out, the roaches dissappeared in  o time. It chases them out.
so I no longer had to use the sprays, and my Asthma got much better right away.
I sprinkle cedar bark mulch all over my yard to control fleas and ticks. I have 4 dogs. In the spring, when it is time for termites to swarm, I sprinkle cedar bark mulch all over, and put a trail of it about 2 or 3 inches wide and a couple inches high, all around the foundation of the house.
I have been doing that for 40 years, and have never had termite damage. They just will not go where cedar is.
Between deep watering, the cockroaches and earthworms, my lawn stays aerated and I never have to wory about thatch.
I had to dethatch when we first moved in here, and that is a heck of a hard job.
I am about 70% disabled now, so there is no way i cn do gardening like i used to. If it weren't for the organics doing so great a job, I would have a desert in my yard.
When I read about the sugar, what he recommended was dry molasses, and if you couldn't get it, sugar would work.
Well, nomne of the nurseries carried dry moalsses, so I used sugar. When I could get dry molasses, I used it one spring and fall, and I liked the results I got with sugar better, so I went back to that. Also, I can pick it up when i do grocery shopping, and those smaller bags are easier for me to handle than the 40 pound bags of dry molasses.
the columnist i read was howard Gerrett. He is Texas organic guru, and he wriotes mostly for Texas gardeners, but organics works all over.
He is a scientist as well as horticulturist, and he has several test labs that he tries everything organic that comes out, and all the home remedies to see what works and what doesn't/ He also does projects in other states.
check out his site at     www.dirtdoctor.com
I joined the ground crew ( paid the yearly subscription fee) so I can have complete access to his site. the videos he makes, and the forums. I am really learning a lot more in there, but have just started using some of the things this spring, so haven't really had enough experience with them to feel comfrtable to recommend them.
There are tons of organic products out there, but you don't have to use ALL of them.
Charlotte