Question
I ran across this site a few months ago when I was looking for lawn fertilizers.  Charlotte Brunkhorst suggested using sugar.  I copied her suggestions to my computer and saw again today re the sugar.  If she could tell me how she puts sugar on her lawn ie-what amounts, sprayed on, diluted with water etc. I would surely appreciate it.

Answer
Sugar Fertilizer: Irving, Texas gardener Charlotte Brunkhorst never stopped championing this idea.  When all else fails, bring out the sugar bowl.

She may not be here any more, but Charlotte is easy to find with a simple google search.  Go for it.

While you do that, let me say this.

I'm all for chemical-free gardening.  In fact, the way I see it, you shouldn't do it any other way.  The garden should grow au natural, with as few changes as possible.  That's just the way God planned it.  Even Poison Ivy has its good points.  (Birds love those berries, devouring them all winter long.)

Charlotte isn't the only sugar-lover around here.  Lowbrow garden guru Jerry Baker is without a doubt the most high profile sugar sprinkler, stretching his fertilizer menu to sucrose-fortified colas.  In Baker's gardens, there's always room for Jello.  Literally.

You can follow the sugar trail all the way through Candy Land, but you still won't find Sugar in Organic products.  Not because it isn't Organic.  But because it's generally considered worthless.

Maybe it is.  But maybe it isn't.  Let me tell you why.

When pressed, scientists -- who are puzzled by this practice -- will tell you that dissolved Sugar is just not physically able to penetrate roots.  Seems the Sucrose molecule, even after it's dissolved in Water, is way too big to squeeze through root 'pores'.

At least one team of young students has tackled this for a school project, and came up with these results:

www.biology-online.org/biology-forum/about10736.html

See that?  Their Sugar-fed plants were 'stunted'.  No Sugar rush for them.

Note one of the replies to the question about whether Sugar works.  It begins, 'Your question is a bit odd...'

See that?  Puzzled and perplexed.

Another reply sums it up nicely (IMHO): 'Not all particles in solution can be taken up by root cells.  A specific transporter is needed for each substance.  Root cells generally do not express the glucose/H+ symporter, because there is no need for it.  There generally is no sucrose in the Soil.'

Good point.

Another states: 'I just finished up a project involving Sucrose concentration and Pisum sativum seeds. We used concentrations of 1.0M, 0.50M, 0.25M and a control and the Sugar doesn't seem to prevent germination so much as slow the process down.'

So there's 2 experiences with Sugar, neither of them good.  What's going on here?  If Sugar can't penetrate root pores, why is it having ANY effect at all?

Well, it is entirely conceivable that Sugar might support growth of specialized Soil Fungi that are good for nearby plants.  I seem to recall Charlotte posting that theory.   And it's a good one.  It doesn't matter whether or not you know the big words.  If you're right, you're right.
 
What we do know is that friendly Fungi can't wait to gobble up the special Hexose Sugars that come from Sucrose.  Even if Sugar doesn't affect the plants, the friendly Fungi think it's AWESOME.  This of course requires that you not do anything to hurt those sweet-toothed Fungal friends, banning from your garden things like Round-Up, Miracle-Gro, and Weed B Gone.  Chemicals like that are death sentences for those magical microbes.

So, whether you find Charlotte or you don't, try it.  This is one good reason to buy Sugar in bulk this Summer.  Save some for the Ice Tea.

Like they say in Brooklyn: How sweet it is.  Peace,

THE LONG ISLAND GARDENER