280 Shade Cloth Basics. Fall Lawn Care.

Show Transcript

280 TRANSCRIPT Shade Cloth, Fall Lawn Renovation REV

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. It's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred.

Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

Heat waves continue throughout the United States in late summer, with more repercussions for your summer garden: slow developing and cracked tomatoes, sunburned pepper plants, overripe fruit, and browning leaves on thin-leafed plants such as Japanese maples. America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural professor, Debbie Flower, discusses strategies to lessen the effects of triple digit heat on your garden, especially adding extra shade to those long-suffering plants. But there are some tips and tricks before you start covering your plants, because your good efforts may lead to even more damage.

And, organic instructor Steve Zien talks about how to care for your lawn in the fall, using less toxic and more earth-friendly methods that will result in you having the greenest lawn on the block. That interview was originally aired in September 2021.

It’s episode number 280, Shade Cloth Basics and Organic Fall Lawn Care

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Smart Pots, Dave Wilson Nursery and Heirloom Roses. Let’s go!

SHADE CLOTH BASICS

Farmer Fred

Well, as you are probably aware, it's been hot lately, wherever you may live, there have just been some rather long heat waves scattered around the country coast to coast, north to south to Alaska to Canada. It's rather amazing. And so people who are growing a garden, that garden may need some protection from too much heat, maybe too much intense sun, and we get this question from Thread, the new social media service, Thread. Jeanette writes in and says, “Hi, my sister and I built this sun shade structure located in Clarksburg, California to protect our vegetables from the upcoming heatwave. Our question is, should we take the shade cloth down when temperatures lower to the 90s or just leave it up?”

Shade? Heat Protection? Oh, my. Debbie Flower is here, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. Do you use shade cloth Debbie?

Debbie Flower

I do use a cloth. I'm sitting here sweating right now.

Farmer Fred

Probably the best place I ever put shade cloth was over my old greenhouse, down in Herald. Because here in beautiful hot central California, greenhouses can reach temperatures up to 121 or 130.  So they just sort of sit there with the doors and windows open.

Debbie Flower

The problem here in the Central Valley, with a greenhouse, is keeping it cool.

Farmer Fred

Yeah. And mitigating heat can be a problem. Now the shade cloth does lower that temperature in the greenhouse 10 or 15 degrees, but that’s not enough to really grow anything. But still, if you have an outdoor garden, and it's in full sun, and you're noticing problems with your crops, maybe sunburn on your tomatoes and peppers, for example, a shade cloth is a great idea. But can you leave shade cloth up the whole time?

Debbie Flower

That's a really good question. Part of it depends on how you've put it up. Is it just over the top? Or is it going all the way over the top and down the sides? That would prevent  pollinators from getting in to the plants ; but also, it’s keeping pests out, which is a good thing. But you do need pollinators for many of our summer crops,

Farmer Fred

We should point out the picture she sent in of her shade cloth. It looks like it's suspended over the garden. It’s supported by some PVC pipes, but the sides are open. So there's good air circulation. However, a cloth just over the top is not going to stop the aphids, or the white flies, but it will make them more comfortable by having that cloth on top. But yeah, that would be a hassle taking that up and down, so I could see why you'd want to leave it up there year round or  at least for the season while you growing crops.  I guess it really depends on the quality of that shade cloth.

Debbie Flower

Right, and how much shade is it actually providing. Plants still need that six to eight hours of full sun, unobstructed sun, to do their best at producing something with seeds. If it's just greens, such as lettuce, bok choi, arugula, you have leeway there with the sun. But if you're asking for a tomato and an eggplant and green beans and squash and pumpkins and all that good stuff, things with seeds in them, you need all that sun. So you need to go out and look at the area, and see how much sun is it getting: in the morning when the sun is low in the east, and how much is it getting in the afternoon, when the sun is low in the West. And if that adds up to the six to eight hours, then you could leave it. I think Clarksburg gets pretty hot, and so my inclination would be to leave it up during this hottest part of the summer because we are gonna get another heat wave. It's just the way it is here.

Farmer Fred

Yes, it is. Clarksburg is in the Delta area of the Sacramento River, an area that adjoins southern Sacramento County, San Joaquin County, Solano County, and parts of Contra Costa County. One thing that happens in the Delta: the wind blows hard. So you better have that shade cloth on securely fastened.

Debbie Flower

Absolutely. Or it might not be there the next day.

Farmer Fred

Getting back to the subject of the thickness of the shade cloth and how much shade it provides. You may not know that shade cloth comes in different availabilities, as far as how much light it can turn transmit through it.

Debbie Flower

Shade cloth comes in different densities. The less dense versions allows more light through. The densities get thicker and thicker, until you can prevent as much as 80% of the sun coming through. And that's according to Peaceful Valley Farm Supply, a wonderful provider of gardening things here in California, available as mail order. 80% is  the density you use to create shade on your patio for humans.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, they point out that you can buy the shade cloth anywhere from 30% to 80%. As far as its light reduction abilities, and they say that for lettuce, spinach and cole crops to use 47% in hot areas. Use the 30% thickness in northern or coastal climates. For shade loving plants, you want a 50 to 60% shade cloth. I'm not sure where you use 80% because that's maximum shade.

Debbie Flower

For people.

Farmer Fred

Okay, that's where you have it over your patio.

Debbie Flower

You have it over your patio, right. Yeah, I was driving up Highway 99, which goes right up through the Central Valley of California, last week. And there are whole fields that are covered in shade cloth over hoop structures, and my 70 mile an hour plant ID from 100 feet is not really good.

Farmer Fred

Were they citrus trees?

Debbie Flower

No, they were low. I can assume that they're spinach, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, those cole crops mentioned in the Peaceful Valley catalog that need that 47% shade in hot areas.

Farmer Fred

I know for citrus trees in the Central Valley, they will net the trees with shade cloth to keep the bees away. Because if you're selling a seedless Mandarin,  they want to make sure it's seedless.

Debbie Flower

Right, I have seen that at other times of the year, not in July, because the fruit is either set or it's off the tree. But yes, I have seen that in the Central Valley.

Farmer Fred

Know what you're growing, and match the shade cloth to what you're growing. Again, 47% in hot areas for the lettuce, spinach and cole crops. 50% 60% for shade loving plants. Or, just plant in the shade.

Debbie Flower

If you got shade. The temperature that is critical is 86 degrees. Above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, plants are just keeping themselves cool. They're not setting fruit, they're not growing, they're just keeping themselves cool, which means they're pumping water. They use water to cool themselves off. They're pumping water through their system to keep cells alive. So that's the temperature you're looking for. If it just reaches,  86 or 90 during the day and drops down at night, I wouldn't shade anything. It's when we get to 100 degrees that it is kind of critical.

Farmer Fred

I have seen here in suburban purgatory ,walking around on hot afternoons - because I'm crazy- some of the ingeniousness - if there is such a word - of people protecting their shade-loving plants from too much heat and too much sun. But I've also seen it backfire where people who are growing in a very hot area, especially maybe narrow side yards, where you get reflected heat. Besides direct heat, such as in a a south facing side yard, where you're gonna get the direct hit of the sun, then reflected heat from a fence that might be behind it, and then from the concrete it might be sitting on. You've got heat from three different directions. And people who have tried to shade their plants to get them to survive longer sometimes ended up creating up more heat, because they're not using shade cloth or they are using something like an umbrella which doesn't allow air to permeate through.

Debbie Flower

Right, you can trap heat. Yes, that's why when I first looked at this picture from Jeanette in Clarksburg, this cloth - part of this is green and part of it's blue, and I wondered if it was a tarp. Tarps will stop the air from moving through, but we can see through it, so we don't think it is a tarp.

Farmer Fred

Unless you’ve developed X ray vision all of a sudden.

Debbie Flower

Well, that would be cool

Farmer Fred

Yeah,  it's definitely a shade cloth. And yeah, I would be tempted to leave it up.

Debbie Flower

I would too, until the heatwave passes. When can see that there's going to be some long periods where temperatures are not going to hit 100.

Farmer Fred

Maybe October.

Debbie Flower

I can remember riding my bicycle as a student at UC Davis and I was in plant ID class. And we had to move quickly because we had to keep up with the instructor, who was on a bicycle ahead of us. It was 100 degrees. And my allergies were horrible. My eyes were running, obviously memorable, because I haven't been in college in a long time. But yes, it was 100 degrees in October, and it was my first year here. I couldn't believe it. 1990.

Farmer Fred

All right, Jeanette. Hope that helps. I think the shade cloth is a good idea and can give your plants a few degrees of protection from from the heat. And I would probably suggest there's some other tips that we could offer, and I think we probably should, especially when it comes to tomatoes or peppers. And that’s to try to maintain as much leaf structure as possible, to provide for shade for the fruit. Yes, avoid pruning your tomatoes.

Debbie Flower

And there are special cultivars. If you read the fine print and a seed catalog, the one I'm thinking of is called Shady Lady. And it is not because it grows in the shade. It's because the tomato plant produces a lot of leaves to shade the plants. The potato-type leaf tomatoes have bigger leaf area. And that's helpful for shading the fruit, but make sure you do regular watering. You use mulch on the soil to keep some of that moisture in. And maybe your heat is only coming from one direction. And if that's the case, you can erect a structure only on that side. So you still get good air movement. You still get lots of light, like a window screen sitting on the ground, but held up by a pole of some sort on a slant to just stop the sun that's really doing the most damage.

Farmer Fred

Now I'm thinking with climate change and more heatwaves, that everybody in the nation is going through at one point or another, maybe potato leaf tomatoes are in our future. As protection from the heat. Some varieties that are examples of potato leaf tomatoes would be the Brandywine, Prudence Purple, Brandy Boy, Lillian's Yellow heirloom, Stupid,  and a variety called Japanese Black Trifele.

Debbie Flower

I never saw that one before.

Farmer Fred

Yeah. And it says here that the potato leaf trait is recessive. What does that mean?

Debbie Flower

It means that if you breed a potato leaf tomato with another potato leaf tomato, only a quarter of the offspring will have potato leafs. The other three quarters, even though they may have inherited a potato leaf gene, it is overpowered by the other type of leaf gene.

Farmer Fred

Now we've found out from many sources that tomatoes, generally, once they're settled into what they want to be for life, they're not F1 hybrids, but maybe heirlooms or something that has been bred for a dozen years or so to have true traits, they will tend to come back true to form.

Debbie Flower

Right so if they form seed, you can grow them and you're typically going to get the same thing. But if it's a potato leaf variety, then only a quarter of the offspring will produce those potato leaves. So you can start a bunch of seeds in containers to see what kind of leaves appear early in the life of the plant, and decide whether you want to use the potato leaf varieties or the traditional tomato leaf varieties.

Farmer Fred

Now I've grown Brandywine, Prudence Purple, and Stupice.  I'm not sure about Lillian's Yellow heirloom or Brandy Boy or the Japanese Black Trifele. But I think it's something we ought to consider more and more. In fact it might be a good test for next year.

Debbie Flower

To grow potato leaf versus tomato leaf.

Farmer Fred

Add a potato leaf tomato to your repertoire.

Debbie Flower

When I got back from vacation, the irrigation timer on my tomatoes had died because it was a battery operated one, attached to the spigot. And the battery went bad and I only have three tomato plants because my husband doesn't eat them and only one is doing fine. The other two dried up, and lost their leaves. The fruit was burned in many places. And the one now that I'm thinking about it,  that one is doing fine. It is a potato leaf variety.  I got it from Native Seed Search, which is in Arizona, and it was a tomato that was touted as growing well in the Tucson area.

Farmer Fred

You're not going to tell us the variety?

Debbie Flower

I will have to get back to you on that.

Farmer Fred

Well , after some research, we have discovered it the variety in question is the Dwarf Desert Star tomato. It's a light golden, juicy, cherry tomato. The Desert Star tomato is from a cross of the Plucky family of dwarf tomatoes, and they'll hold up as you just heard, to a lot of stress. And don't think of  it as a dwarf plant , when it comes to this particular dwarf cherry tomato. The plant itself can get up to four feet tall with determinant vines. The Desert Star. it's a product of the Dwarf Tomato Project. So Jeanette, keep on up with the shade cloth, and good luck with the garden this year. Debbie Flower, thanks for your help.

Debbie Flower

My pleasure, Fred.

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Farmer Fred

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HEIRLOOM ROSES

Farmer Fred

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FALL LAWN CARE, ORGANICALLY

Farmer Fred

Fall is for planting. Fall is also the time for lawn renovation. If you live in a warm winter area; or, if 40% or more of your lawn is in really bad shape, you may want to consider a lawn renovation in September or October. But again, that's for the mild winter areas, especially here in California. If you live in a cold climate, springtime is probably the best time to do it. What's involved in renovating your lawn? What can be done to perk it up? There's plenty. Let's bring in Sacramento's organic advocate, president of Living Resources Company, Steve Zien. And Steve, let's talk about fall lawn care from an organic gardening perspective. There's a lot of products out on the market that are 'Weed and Feed' products that people tend to put down in the fall, and are suggested for some lawns in the fall.

Steve Zien

And these are typically broadleaf weed killers. So it kills not grass, which has a very narrow leaf, but broadleaf weed,s like clover and things like that. And the problem is, it does not select what kind of broadleaf plant that it kills. And so, a lot of your shrubs and trees, in particular birch, Elm, hackberry, maple, Redbud, oak and ash are very, very susceptible. And if you're using (a product that contains the active ingredient) 2-4,D  in the lawn, and you've got tree roots under there, realize that tree roots go well beyond the drip line, two to three times beyond the drip line or more, which is the outermost branches. So if you've got an average size lot, and you've got, you know, a tree in there, even though the lawn might be far away, the roots of that tree are probably there and they're taking up that 2-4,D and it will weaken them, make them more susceptible to pests and can Eve and might kill them. And so it's damaging to your your landscape, potentially damaging to your landscape plants.

Farmer Fred

Talk a little bit about two words people may see on these weed and feed products that bear definitions. And those words are pre emergent and post emergent.

Steve Zien

A pre emergent prevents the weeds from growing. And it's really important when you use a pre emergent, especially in mild season areas where we don't have a lot of frost and very little if any snow and things basically keep growing year round, although slowly, there are what are called winter weeds and summer weeds. And you need in the fall to make sure that your pre emergent weed killer, if you choose to buy one and I certainly don't recommend them. I recommend against using them. But if you insist on using one, make sure that it is for fall use because typically broadleaf weeds are annuals. They die every year at the end of their growth cycle. And there are summer weeds that germinate in spring and grow all through this summer and then they die in fall. And then there are the winter weeds that germinate in fall and grow all winter and die in the spring. And there are different weeds and the herbicides in many cases need to be different to kill those weeds. So make sure you're getting a pre emergent this time of year that's going to deal with fall (and winter) weeds.

Farmer Fred

And it's important, if you're applying pre emergent or post emergent weed control products, which we'll get into a second, that you also read on the label if it can be applied to the type of lawn you have. Because different products affect lawns differently. And there are just some, especially post emergent products, that you do not want to put on certain types of turf.

Steve Zien

Yeah, I always read and follow label directions, it's really important after you put the preemergent down, not to scratch or, or or do anything to the surface of the soil. If you, for example, take a rake or you dethatch or something, it will kind of eliminate the coating that these preemergents put over the soil surface. And it will allow the seeds to germinate. When you put down the preemergent, and then you water it in a little bit, it basically puts a shield over the soil surface. And as the seeds germinate, they come up and they hit this barrier and it kills them. If you scratch the soil, you put cracks in that barrier and the weeds will come up. There is an organic preemergent. I will say this, that I do recommend it. I know people who have had really good results with it. And it's corn gluten meal. And there are some organic fertilizers that contain corn gluten meal as either one of the ingredients or the only ingredient. Corn gluten meal also has a fair amount of nitrogen. If you look at the bags of fertilizers, nitrogen is the first number. And typically if it has corn gluten meal, it might have 10% or 9% nitrogen. If it's only a corn gluten meal weed n feed, and it's really not a weed and feed, it's a feed and weed preventer.

Farmer Fred

Right, it's a pre emergent. Now I have understood that corn gluten meal is more effective in areas that get summer rain like the Midwest. I've  heard of great success with corn gluten meal as a pre emergent in the Midwest. I haven't heard much success of it here on the west coast.

Steve Zien

Yeah, it's interesting, because you know, University of California actually did some research. I don't know how extensive. And they found that, you know, it didn't work very well. Although I know of people who have used it, some in the professional horticultural industry, and have had great success with it. If nothing else, you're feeding your lawn, because it does have, that nitrogen in there.

Farmer Fred

Let's talk about post emergent herbicides, those weed and feed products that contain a product that's going to kill existing weeds. And I know this is going to raise your blood pressure. But why do people want to control dandelions?

Steve Zien

I think after World War Two, the chemical industry that was making bombs, there we go, there was no need for bombs anymore, and explosives. And so they had to figure out what to do with with all of those chemicals, and they decided they could, or they figured out that they can make weed killers out of them. And so there was this big huge campaign that everybody should have that perfect lawn. And to achieve that perfect lawn is very, very easy. You just put down these chemicals on your lawn, and it will eliminate dandelions and it will eliminate clover, all of these things that it used to be considered a regular part of the lawn, in particular clover. Before World War Two people used to add clover and I actually recommend adding Dutch white clover to the lawn. It is more drought tolerant, it has deep roots. So it breaks up clay soils, if you have clay soils that don't drain very well. And it manufactures nitrogen. Years ago when that when the park districts had money. And there wasn't the objection of using herbicides on public parks, you can see where they didn't use the herbicides, if you would look out where the lawn is. And if you could see green spots that were nice and green, you could walk over there. And every single time if you looked hard, you would see there's a lot of clover in that one spot because that's manufacturing the nitrogen and feeding the grass plants and making everything nice and green. And so it was really the chemical industry telling us after World War Two, you can have that perfect lawn. And it's very, very easy to do. And everybody you know, and everybody thought, well, wow, yeah, that's what we want. And so we were convinced that's the way to go. And in the case of clover, we were really eliminating what was considered and I still consider to be a very, very important part of a healthy lawn. You know,  if you've got a golf course, you've got a putting green, maybe you  probably don't want the clover there. But in your average home lawn, it's a good thing. And a lot of people say well, clovers got the flowers and attracts bees. And one of the things in maintaining a lawn properly is to mow it frequently. You never want to cut off more than 1/3 of the blade of grass or you will stress the lawn, make it more susceptible to pests. And if you're mowing so that you never cut off more than 1/3, you will be mowing that lawn often enough where the blooms of the clover will just be beginning to be opening up and, and then you'll mow them down and so you really don't see very many blooms if you're mowing properly.

DAVE WILSON NURSERY

Farmer Fred

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FLASHBACK EPISODE: #227 UNDERSTANDING DRIP IRRIGATION

Farmer Fred

Have you ever strolled through the Drip Irrigation aisle in the plumbing section of a Home Depot or Lowe’s, and seen all the people, just standing there,  staring at the wide array of drip tubing, connectors, emitters, sprayers, filters, regulators, tools and timers specifically for your garden’s drip irrigation system? Don’t let drip irrigation become drip irritation.

It’s no wonder that Episode 227 from September 2022 is one of the most listened to podcasts in the Garden Basics series: Understanding Drip Irrigation.

Avoid spending your afternoons standing still, pondering endlessly in the drip irrigation aisle at the hardware store. Give it a listen. Number 227 Understanding Drip Irrigation. It’s a chat with one of the foremost experts on drip irrigation. In fact, he wrote the book on it, Robert Kourik. Find a link to it in today’s show notes, or at the podcast player of your choice. And you can find it at our home page, garden basics dot net.

FALL GARDEN CARE, ORGANICALLY PART 2

Farmer Fred

Let's get back to our conversation with organic landscaper, Steve Zien, regarding fall lawn care. We'll have links in today's show notes about the proper mowing height for various types of turf and it really pays to mow at the correct height. You're going to have a healthier lawn with a healthier root system. Most people tend to cut their lawns too short, or they're they have a mow and blow service that is cutting lawns too short. And if you do have a service that is cutting your lawn, made sure that they're mower blade height matches your turf, fescue, cool season. Fescues, for example, need to be mowed tall, they need to be kept much taller than what you normally see on a cut lawn for the overall health of a lawn. And that's how you get a healthy lawn is by treating it right to begin with.

Steve Zien

Yeah, and also you're going to have fewer weeds when if you're mowing properly, most of our lawns are cool season grasses that should be mowed at roughly three to three and a half inches high. And most people mow them much closer like almost like golf greens and mowing high, like you said, you're going to have deeper roots and it also will shade the surface of the soil. And so when weed seeds germinate if you have a thick, tall lawn, those seeds aren't going to get any sun and they will die. That's part of your pre emergent weed control system: it is having that tall lawn.

Farmer Fred

Okay, this is all sort of a scenic bypass to why we're here in the first place, which is sort of a fall lawn renovation, especially if it's looking poor and you want a good looking lawn here in the West. September-October is the time to do it, in the mild winter portions of the West. in the Midwest and back East, maybe in spring you would do this. You're going to cut your lawn as short as possible. Then you're going to water the lawn thoroughly to soften the soil. Wait a day or two. And then you're going to dethatch, aerate, fertilize, overseed, and add compost. And then you're gonna have the greenest lawn on the block.

Steve Zien

Yeah. And then I would also recommend in addition to the compost throwing some worm castings I love worm castings.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, okay, fine. All right. And the point of the fertilizer is it's a starter fertilizer, so it's going to have a different nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium content than others. And unlike what your local water agency may be advising, if you're starting a new lawn like that, or a rehabbed lawn, from seed, it's okay to water it every day lightly two or three or four times until it's up and growing. after a few weeks and then you can go back to a normal watering regimen or one that is legislated in your area. But for a new lawn you do want to keep it evenly moist and it may take seven or 14 days for the seed to germinate.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, also you know you would like the soil surface to be almost dry at the end of the day, especially when those seeds are sprouting. You don't want those leaves wet when the sun goes down. So your  last irrigation should be a couple hours before sunset. If the blades of grass are wet, all night long, you're kind of encouraging disease problems.

Farmer Fred

We use the terms dethatch and aerate. Thatch is, the unseen enemy of your lawn. If you have a lawn that's looking poorly, there are brown spots, here's something you could do: you could cut off a square of lawn. Go down about eight inches or so in a perfect, small square, maybe eight inches or so square, and bring up that whole chunk. And you'll see the green grass on top, then you might see an inch or two inches or three inches of dead lawn, and then your soil. And that basically means that air, water, and fertilizer can't penetrate to the root zone of your  lawn because of that thick layer of dead material, also known as thatch. And that's when you bring in a dethatcher. And it's amazing the amount of dead material you can bring up.

Steve Zien

It really is amazing how much you can have. And also, I will say that if you're using synthetic fertilizers and pesticides on that lawn, you are much more likely to have a thatch problem because you're killing the biology that normally keeps that thatch under control. You can go to your local nursery, if you have a small lawn they have what are called dethatching rakes. And basically they're like a garden rake. But instead of having thick tines, the tines are knives, and it just cuts through the thatch. I will say that hopefully you have a very small lawn if you're going to try and do it that way. Because it's a huge amount of work. It's really hard, back breaking work. You can also go to your rental yards, and they rent the thatch power rakes. It's kind of like a mower, a lawnmower, but instead of having the blade go parallel to the lawn, it goes perpendicular to the lawn. And they have lots of blades. And it just slices and dices your lawn. Well, it doesn't dice. But it slices up your lawn and it brings the thatch to the surface, which you've then have to rake off.

Farmer Fred

And that's why it goes much quicker with two people. You have one person pushing that power dethatcher also called a vertical mower, and then the person behind it raking up all that thatch into a pile off the lawn. And it's not uncommon to pull up what could easily be a cubic yard of dead material from a lawn that may be only a couple of 1000 square feet.

Steve Zien

Yeah, I mean, I've seen pictures where a person had an average sized lawn and the pile  that he got was was almost as high as he was. And as wide as he was. Yeah, it was just huge pile.

Farmer Fred

And then you would aerrate. And aerating is not walking over your lawn in golf spikes. That is not aeration. That's compaction right? How does an aerator work?

Steve Zien

Well, an aerator works by using what's called a spoon. It's a tine that is hollow. It's basically a hollow tube. And depending upon what kind of aerator you have, you might have three or four tubes that work off part of a crankshaft, or it might have like a barrel with you know, hundreds of what are called spoons. They look like, just imagine, like a test tube that has an opening on both ends. And when it is inserted into the soil, when your soil is moist, it fills up with that soil and then it comes out of the soil and when it goes into the soil again, there's a hole on top and the soil that is being forced into the time pushes the soil that was in the tine before from the previous insertion out the back end and it's resting on top of your lawn and you can either break it up and just rake it back in the lawn or or rake it off and put it someplace else. Or just leave it there and it'll you know, it'll be there for a couple of months. If you're going to overseed,  if you're doing a real renovation, you can maybe just drag a piece of chain link fence, that's what the golf courses do, when they aerate. They just have a chain link fence drag behind the the aerator. And that'll break up most of those cores.

Steve Zien

And then you want to spread that starter fertilizer and a lawn seed that closely matches your existing grass over the area. And then you want to roll it, you want to press that seed into the ground and usually the best thing for that is back at the rental yard, or a local nurseries, will sometimes lend them to you, are water-filled rollers. Yeah. And while you're getting the water-filled roller, you might as well get one of those cages that spreads compost.

Steve Zien

I do want to say if you're using an organic fertilizer, which is what I would recommend, if you get your typical, you know, most of your organic lawn fertilizers, or  you can use an organic starter fertilizer like Fred just talked about, or you can use an organic lawn fertilizer, because  they're they're slow release. But you want to make sure that it has some phosphorus, which is that second number in the printed as three numbers because some of the lawn fertilizers don't have any of that second number. Because back east in particular, it's a real pollution problem and it's damaging the lakes and so the national brand lawn fertilizers have removed the phosphorus and so, you'll see like a 9-0-5 for example, and that second number will be zero because of the restrictions, legal restrictions, they have back east because of the pollution problem.

Farmer Fred

Phosphorus is for root development. Now, in organic lawn fertilizers, can they have phosphorus in them?

Steve Zien

You know, the organic sources for phosphorus are not as subject to runoff which is the real problem with the synthetic sources of phosphorus. In some states, in some communities where they have these guidelines where they restrict phosphorus, some of them have differentiated between the organic sources and the synthetic sources and the organic sources are allowed in in some areas.

Farmer Fred

If you're balking at the price of paying for an organic lawn fertilizer, consider this. Usually on organic lawn fertilizers, you only have to apply it twice a year. With synthetic lawn fertilizers, they might suggest four or five times, maybe every six weeks. And if you compare the price in that regard, organic fertilizers is a much better buy and less work for you.

Steve Zien

It's less work, you're not having to go to the store to buy it as frequently, you get a much healthier soil with the organic fertilizer. Synthetic fertilizers are high in salts, and they kill the beneficial soil biology. The organic fertilizers stimulate the soil biology, depending upon your organic fertilizer, they may even have a beneficial biology in that bag with the fertilizer. And that beneficial soil biology extends the area that the roots can absorb water and nutrients they provide pest protection. They make a much happier and healthier lawn that will resist pests, both diseases and insects. So you're saving your money in reference to pest management, and you're going to have a better quality lawn.

Farmer Fred

And again, the final step is to spread that thin layer of compost over the entire area and the cages, the rolling cages, that you can get from either nurseries or rental yards, eases that process quite a bit. It doesn't have to be a thick layer, you're not burying the seed with the compost. It's a very thin layer that will work its way into the soil in no time. And yeah, and then you lightly roll it. So after dethatching, aerating, and overseeding here in the West, you can do it either in the fall or in the spring. Back east and in the Midwest, you probably want to do it just in spring. After you do that  renovation to your lawn, you're gonna have the nicest looking lawn on the block.

Steve Zien

Yeah, and then you'll get that big thick lawn, which will prevent the weeds if especially if you're mowing it high as as appropriate for the type of lawn that you have.

Farmer Fred

Treat it right, feed it right, and you will always have a great looking lawn. We got a lot of great fall lawn care tips about renovating a lawn and applying pre emergent and post emergent weed controls as well as fertilizers, courtesy of Steve Zien, Sacramento's organic advocate, Living Resources president. Steve, thanks for all the good lawn tips today.

Steve Zien

Yeah, it's been fun as always, Fred.

BEYOND THE GARDEN BASICS NEWSLETTER

Farmer Fred

In the latest issue of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we tackle another summertime disorder of tomatoes: why are they slow to ripen? For that, you can blame the heat spikes this summer. And who hasn’t suffered through that this year?

And in the podcast portion of the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, we start snipping away at another summertime tomato problems: tomato worms. And it’s not just tomato hornworms. There are other worm-like critters munching away at your beautiful red orbs of August and September. Debbie Flower gets into the lifestyles of tomato hornworms, tomato fruit worms and tomato pinworms.

If you are already a Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter subscriber, it’s probably in your email, waiting for you right now. Or, you can start a subscription, it’s free! Find the link to the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast in today’s show notes, or on the Substack app. Or, you can sign up at the newsletter link at our homepage, gardenbasics dot net.

Farmer Fred

The Garden Basics With Farmer Fred podcast comes out once a week, on Fridays. Plus the newsletter podcast, that comes with the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter, continues, also released on Fridays. Both are free and are brought to you by Smart Pots and Dave Wilson Nursery. The Garden Basics podcast is available wherever podcasts are handed out, and that includes our home page, Garden Basics dot net. , where you can also sign up for the Beyond the Garden Basics newsletter and podcast. That’s Garden Basics dot net. or use the links in today’s show notes.  And thank you so much for listening.