Question
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Followup To
Question -
Hi,
It is warm here in Michigan (Zone 5) and we have been cleaning our yard. With this we have found a big patchs of brown grass with lots of holes in and around it. At first it just looks like the grass is still dorment but if you walk on it all you see are little holes and grass that does not seem to have roots. What is going on? And what do we do?

Kecia & Lovett Edmond
Answer -
Hi Kecia;
The brown spots could be grub wirm damage or blown patch fungus.
turn up a spadeful of dirt in one of those nrown spots, and see if there are grubs under there.
If it is grub worms, you will deffinately see them.
The holes, Hm, could be cicadoes, or cockroaches. Cockroaches normally live in the soil,and you WANT them there.
with use of insecticides, you kill of their food supply, so they come in the house to find food, and get away from the poison.
With organic gardening, and organic pest controls in the house, the cockroaches stay in the ground, where they eat harmful insects etc, and tunnel through aerating as they go. GREAT aerators !
Could be because of the leaf cover, or maybe you have clay that will not close up when they tunel through, is what the holes are, or maybe the cicadioes, or it may be some bug you have in Michigan we don't have in Texas.
Thought we had every bug there is.LOl We sure have our share.
If there are no grubs in that soil you turn up ( and you don't see another kind of bug) it sounds lke brown opatch fungus.
For that, mix 1 rounded TBLSP ( about 4 teaspoons) of baking soda per gallon of water, and spray the area well.
For the grubs, They are finished feeding, but you may be able to get rid of them if there are enough for you to really have to deal with.
In an organic program, the lizards, toads etc eat the grubs, so at most you would only have a few. if there were eniugh to have to deal with them, beneficial nemetodes work well.
for chemical relief, I cannot advise you.
Best to sonsult a local nurseryman's advice.
Except for the holes, I would say it is deffinately brown patch.
write me anytime you feel I can help.
Charlotte

Hello Charlotte,
Thank you very much. This is the first day I have been home all day and the birds are really injoying that brown spot in the yard. We do not have lizards here in MI but I do have toads in my yard ( I know you do not like to look at them ) my dog plays with them. From what I have been watching today I think the bird are the reason for all the holes but I can not find what they are eating. One other thing how do you use the suger on the grass I would really like to use instead of the other stuff. I have asthma and a little girl who loves to play out side.

Kecia

Answer
Hi Kecia;
I don't mind looking at toads, it's snakes I don't like to even watch at all!!!
But I won't let anyone harm my lil grass snakes.I appreciate what they do for me.
I have had several dogs that liked to play with toads.
I had one German shepherd that herded them.
When I lived in houston, every day at duck in the summer, the toads would come out. Lady would herd them like a flock of cattle or sheep.
It was funny to watch.
My son had a little mixed breed that would pick them up in his mouth, get that bitter stuff in his mouth and foam at the mouth, sling his head and have a fit. we would get his mouth washed out with the hose, and that bitter stuff out of his mouth, and get him relief, then he would turn right around and grab another one.LOl
My friend's German shepherd would herd toads into a hole, then when he got the hole full, he would hike his leg and mark them for his.LOl
Guessing he was branding his stock.LOl
Let the birds feast. there is some kind of bug or worm they are getting fat on, and ridding your lawn of them.
The sugar is the neatest thing I have ever used.
I just get bags of it, open a bag, and hold it in one arm walking around getting handfuls and broadcasting it with a wide sweet of my arm.
I can sugar the whole lawn in no time, and then water it in and it feeds those litte microbes and they enrich my soil, and the weeds don't thrive and they go away.
Soooo easy.
I use 1 pound sugar per 250 sq.ft of lawn.
I do it eash spring at the first sign of greening, and in the fall when you would normally do the fall feeding.
Last summer, we had such heat and such a dry season, I thought the grass looked stressed in spite of deep watering. I figured maybe the heat had killed off some of the microbes too. It was cooking everything else. so I gave a sugar feeding, watered it in good, and in a few days the grass didn't lok stressed, so I guess the microbes can succumb to extreme heat too.
Since I use no chemicals inside th house or out ( for oest control, and th fertilizers) my Asthma is about 90% better, and of course don't have to worry about my grandchildren or dogs getting anything that will harm them.
I had a hard Asthma attack in January and February of this year, and that is the first in 8 years, since I started the organic program.
I use fresh rosemary on each pantry and cabinet shelf, under each appliance and anywhere roaches can come in or hide. Lavender in a large container growing at each entrance to keep houseflies from coming in, and I paint a strip of cedar oil on my closet rods to keep moths out of the closets.
Some of it or all of it together works on a lot more, because i also don't have earqigs or silverfish or apiders anymore.

Besides being great for relazation and a sleep aid, the scent of lavender repels house flies.
Put sprigs of fresh lavender among the food at a picnic to help keep the flies away fo the food. Or just take a flower pot with it planted in it for a centerpiece. Pretty and functional.LOl
Hand slices of fruit in a tree etc away from the picnicers and that will attract stinging insects like wasps away from the people and help avoid stings.
Chopped lemon peels in a flower bed keeps neighborhood kitties fro using them for a litter box, if you have cats inside and potted plants, some chopped lemon peels will keep them out of your potted plants.
In the spring, when it is time for tomcats to start using my holly bushes under my living room window for their post office, i buy about a dozen lemons, pel them and chop the peels and scatter them on the ground there. Keeps the little bugerd from stinking up the front entrance to my house. Then every time i use a lemom I chop up the peel and throw it out there, throwing it in a different spot each time. I keep a steady repellant there that way.
I chop orange peels too. It can't hurt, and it will keep fire ants away.
It is time here for the fire ants to swarm, so i am eating oranges, and geting the neighborhood kids and my grandkids to eat some, chopping the peels and scattewring them all over the yard, to keep away fire ants. IT WORKS!!!!
If you see a fire any mound, drop some chopped orange peels over it, and they will leave, right away!!!
Fire ants will tavel 2 miles from their mound and back in a day, looking for food. I don't ant them to use my yard for their home base, or to come in my yard looking for food.
It's spring and people are starting to fish.
Buy a can of fishing worms and drop them in your yard. Earthworms are one of the greatest assets to a lawn and garden.
I think the fishing worms are the same worm, they will only benefit the soil anyway. they don't be grubs.LOL
I don't know a lot about worms. Feel the same about them as i do about snakes, only maybe even more so.
Write anytime, and i will be glad to share my organic voodoo with you.LOl
I have just bought Howard Garrett's book on organic gardening in Texas.
H is our resident organic guru, and he has all sorts of recipes for teas to enhance the garden.
I watched his show one week, and he told about alfalfa meal tea.
You get alfalfa meal, mix 1 cup in 5 gallons of water, let it set overnight and water your blooming plants, inside and out with it to eng=hance blooming.
You put cider vinegar in it too, I think. I think it is 1 teaspoon per gallon of water. the cider vinegar, i think, helps the root system.

I plan to print up a lot of these recipes, and when my organic gardening friends ask about them, i can just copy and paste the list to them here. so waich for it, or just stay in tough.
When i get Easter over with, and next week the ceramic show here, I can get on that list.
Charlotte