Hi everyone,

I have been reading some posts on this forum for a few days and decided to try and get some questions answered directly. Forgive me if this is common knowledge to some of you and redundant, but I don't know where to begin.

I am a new home-owner in the Westchester County area of New York. I have about a .25 acre of total property and would estimate maybe 5k sq ft of lawn coverage. I don't know the lawn regiment of the previous owner, but the lawn is in what I would call decent condition. I want to get it back to beautiful. Basically the few problems are dry/brown spots and crabgrass, clover and some weeds. So a few questions:

-I am watering about every 4 days, for about 25min per zone. The water beads are heavy and not just a spray. Sound ok?
-I was thinking about dropping some Milorganite down(probably two bags), based on what I have been reading. I have read the heat doesn't matter(in the 90s daily in NY) but does it matter if the lawn was treated by the previous owner in May? The smell also makes me nervous. My neighbors are fairly close and I would not want to make a bad first impression with them. How bad is it for a first application?
-Is there any harm in dropping some down now and then the next treatment being a "winterizing" in November or so? I was going to follow the Scott's 4 step program but after reading about the organic way, I have decided otherwise.
-Feel free to feed me more knowledge. I am trying to learn what you all think are the best practices.

Thanks in advance,
BV

Watering's best if you can give the full 1" every seven days (or when the lawn needs it...mine doesn't need weekly watering). But it does depend on your soil, and smaller amounts every four days might be optimal if you have very sandy soil. Let us know what the soil's like and how much water the system actually puts out in 25 minutes (which can be measured with tuna cans).

Milorganite = Whenever You Want. The scent isn't what I consider offensive, I actually like it, but you might want to get a single bag and test it somewhere before deciding if it's OK for you. Even if the previous homeowner fed in May, it would have been fine to use it--in May.

You can pretty much drop organics whenever, so now is fine. After that, it does take a while for soils to adjust to their new fertilizer, so you may want to follow up with some synthetics in September along with more organics. September and October are heavy feeding months for your lawn, so it's important to have the resources then. If you short it in April or summer, no big deal. Doing it in fall is going to lead to poor winter performance and poor spring greening.

Then winterize, of course!

There's no such thing as a "best practice" with feeding, per se, it depends on what your goals are. If you want to just have a nice lawn they'll differ from best in the neighborhood, and differ in both cases from best in the state.

For synthetics, a good guide is to feed in late May, early September, early October, and winterize. For organics, the game changes. Even the synthetics will differ if you just want a tolerable lawn--skipping October wouldn't be an issue, or one that's just OK in which case September and winterizer would be fine.

If you can give us a feel for what you want, that'll help. Beautiful is a general guide, but that can vary a lot. To me, that means I risk traffic accidents from people staring at it. That may not be your definition (and that's fine). We'll work with what you want.

(written before I saw Morph's entry)

Hi, BVILL, and welcome!

First of all, I'd put my town in your mini-profile to the right of your postings - I'm in "Southeast NY" and so are the Long Islanders, but the climates are very different. You're in the middle (the ham in the SE NY sandwich, so to speak). If putting your actual town bothers you, at least put Westchester Cty in there.

I am watering about every 4 days, for about 25min per zone. The water beads are heavy and not just a spray. Sound ok?

It's not optimal, but not horrible either. We'll try to get you to make that less-frequent and deeper.

I was thinking about dropping some Milorganite down(probably two bags), based on what I have been reading. I have read the heat doesn't matter(in the 90s daily in NY) but does it matter if the lawn was treated by the previous owner in May? The smell also makes me nervous. My neighbors are fairly close and I would not want to make a bad first impression with them. How bad is it for a first application?

Put it down once and judge for yourself. Many of us don't find it an unpleasant smell at all. To me it smells a bit like a muddy beach when the tide is out.

does it matter if the lawn was treated by the previous owner in May?

It doesn't matter if you even put it down yesterday. This is the thing that you have to "unlearn" when going to organics - there is no minimum waiting period. You must, however, follow the law of Milorganite:

Never apply Milorganite on a day whose name doesn't end with a "Y"

Some of us apply Milorganite every week, and many apply it at double the recommended rate. It's that safe.

If you want to start turning the lawn around, you're going to get a consistent theme here: get the soil right. Get a soil test from Logan Labs (preferred) or UMASS.

Well first welcome. For your first question a out crabgrass and clover I would go to a big box store and get some weed-b-gone. They have one for clover but I am nit sure if it kills crabgrass off hand. Do not spray when your temps are above 85. You will have to wait a few weeks.

Milorganite does have a smell to it the first time but nothing to bad so I think you will be just fine. Since this is your first time I think I would use both organic and synthetic. When things start to cool down around labor day I would drop some Scotts turf builder. Then from then to your winterizer I would us milorganite as you want.

Any bare spots might need to be seeded but we need pictures to know what your working with.

Have you ever measured how much water you are putting down per zone? Next time stick a few trays or tuna cans out and see.

[ Post made via Android ]

Looks like I was beat by the great ones

[ Post made via Android ]

Welcome BV! We have very similiar sized properties, and a soil test is step 1 as the guys mentioned. Spread tuna cans around your lawn to gauge how much water is put out.

BEWARE, once you think your lawn looks good, you might get hooked and want your lawn to look AWESOME!

LOL Morph regarding 'beautiful' causing traffic accidents!

BV that is what you are dealing with here. Compassionate lawn nuts. Listen to them, they turned me around from being the poster boy for the Scott's 29 step program

Wow guys, what can I say? Thank you so much for the information provided so far. This is a great forum.

OK to touch on some of the questions and comments:

-Should have been more clear on the beautiful line =). Basically I am looking for a plush, green lawn, that I can mow and water weekly. I don't mind the occasional yard work, but I want to avoid weeds and crabgrass. I also would like to avoid brown spots. So maybe I just described an ideal situation but I am somewhat anal about the look of my property.
-I plan on watering soon and will update on the tuna can method(we just had a nice rain the other day so I don't think it's necessary just yet).
-The soil is not too sandy, I would say more on the coarse/thick side
-From Yonkers NY, will update the location, sorry about that.
-I will send a sample to Logan Labs asap and report back results.
-Pics to come.

One more question...What exactly is winterizing? Is it just buying a few bags of Scotts Turf Builder with Winterguard and spreading it? Or am I missing something(probably am).

I give you guys credit for being so patient with the newcomers like me. Not all forums would do the same.

thanks again

Hi Bvhill,

I'm a fairly new member here too, in fact not even a week old! I myself have been cruising around different websites and forums looking for lawn answers, and there has been no other as helpful and as knowledgable and as nutty about lawns than the guys u find here. I discovered these guys post on the other forums too, but they are most active here and since then they have helped me outline my plan for my lawn renovation in two weeks.

Mind you, the perfect time for overseeding or renovating your lawn is fast approaching. It depends on the type of grass that you have or want. Turf-type Tall Fescue and Perennial Ryegrass germinate rather quickly and u can plant these near the end of the short window, Kentucky Bluegrass takes a bit longer to germinate and establish itself so you need to seed them earlier. They need to get established before the growing season ends so they can survive throughout winter.

Even if you are still waiting for your soil test from Logan Labs (although they process it real quick), you can start taking care of some other problems you have such as weeds and you can start deciding what you want to do with your lawn. It sounds like you have a high potential to be a lawnatic!

you guys have a few days to convince him to do a complete renovation! tic toc!

Ryan

bvill wrote:-Should have been more clear on the beautiful line =). Basically I am looking for a plush, green lawn, that I can mow and water weekly. I don't mind the occasional yard work, but I want to avoid weeds and crabgrass. I also would like to avoid brown spots. So maybe I just described an ideal situation but I am somewhat anal about the look of my property.

"Very nice, Best In Neighborhood." No, that's completely reasonable. If you said you want gorgeous with no work, that would be unreasonable.

I'm assuming a contractor's tri-mix, perhaps with an overseed with a sunny mix or sun and shade mix. That's fine, you can have a really nice lawn with that. I posted photos of my mother's lawn some time ago and it looks great. It's a cheap tri-mix.

You do have to keep after the weeds at first, but as the lawn thickens, it'll start taking care of its own (mostly by strangulation, I think).

I'd go with the four times a year feeding if you want to go synthetic (May, September, October, Winterizer). Organically, start at four (May, August, September, October, use a synthetic Winterizer) and work up from there as much as you like. My top-flight year was 1,200 pounds per thousand square feet of organic material, but that's kind of over the top...

-I plan on watering soon and will update on the tuna can method(we just had a nice rain the other day so I don't think it's necessary just yet).
-The soil is not too sandy, I would say more on the coarse/thick side

We will assume silt until proven otherwise. Clay is rare. There are instructions for a free home-done jar test around here...ah, here they are: Click here for more information

Test that whenever convenient and we'll go from there.

-From Yonkers NY, will update the location, sorry about that.
-I will send a sample to Logan Labs asap and report back results.
-Pics to come.

Good on all three. Of everything possible, the soil test is probably the most important as long as you're watering reasonably well and mowing reasonably well.

Good grass won't grow in bad soil.

One more question...What exactly is winterizing? Is it just buying a few bags of Scotts Turf Builder with Winterguard and spreading it? Or am I missing something(probably am).

Yeeeeesssss....but most of us are going to give you different answers on this.

I use Vigoro Super Green to winterize because it's cheap (I like cheap. I really like cheap), and has a good bit of slow-release nitrogen to trickle out into the lawn during our really irregular winters. My lawn has been commanded not to go dormant, however, so it can use the feeding even in February.

Others use urea. It has no slow release nitrogen, but it's even cheaper than Super Green. Still others use other things.

I'm not a fan of most winterizer fertilizers as they tend to be a bit high in potassium (the third number) and you're applying it just before ground freeze. That has a tendency to erode off during winter and enter streams and rivers. Bad idea, although it's mostly just a waste and potassium isn't considered a water pollutant.

I'm not a fan of most Scotts' fertilizers, but that's quite another story. Suffice to say their recommended timings are completely wrong, and they recommend using herbicides and insecticides you may not need--you probably DON'T need, actually. There are exceptions to this rule, though.

Winterization is delivering a nice burst of nitrogen when top growth on the lawn stops. For me, that's around Thanksgiving, but it varies widely year by year and in every location. The roots up-take the nitrogen and since top growth has stopped and root growth is no great shakes that late in the season, they process most of it into sugars and store it in the roots.

That helps the grass survive the winter, re-green earlier in spring, and will feed it beautifully right through May. It helps reduce the amount of time the grass is dormant as well--it becomes a little more cold-tolerant if it's full of sugar water.

Of all the feedings, winterizing is the most important on cool-season lawns. September's is the second most important.

Thanks for all the knowledge guys, from another Newbie that is trying to learn about organics.