CUTTING THE GRASS

You need only cut your grass every two weeks.

Yes it gets long, but it gets a chance to grow a bit before you chop it's head off again. This statement is very true in the heat of summer. You should raise the lawn mower blade so as to cut the grass and leave it taller in the heat of summer and leave the cutting for two week intervals. You raise the mower deck by adjusting the edge or deck carrier wheels downward, thus carrying the mower deck higher. Yes, I know neighbour Joe? is cutting his, but look how brown it is turning in the hot sun. When cooler weather arrives in September, October here in southern Ontario, Canada, I will lower the mower blade and cut the grass closer. Grass loves the cool weather with lots of rain and grows even better in fall than in the hot summer. In this manner you will be protecting your lawn from the summer heat. In very hot summers,I have left my grass for three and even four weeks, because

cutting it would only make it worse by exposing the soil under the grass to the sun, so it cannot shade itself.

I never, ever water a lawn unless it is just newly seeded. Why, Well observe the grassland on the hot summer prairie regions of North America. It survives by shading itself and having sufficient foliage to catch enough evening and morning dew to make droplets that run down to the root base and keep it from perishing in the hot weather. Grass goes into a servival mode in the heat of summer and if you water, you only break the survival mode and weaken the resistance to the heat that the grass has developed. So, Its not very green.Go on holidays and it will still be there when you come back, and when cool weather returns, it will green up as green as ever and be good healthy grass.

• What and When --- Cut your grass less often.

Raise mower blade to leave grass longer in Summer.

Never water in Summer unless you are prepared to

continue watering until two or more inches of water has

been spread evenly over all of the lawn. It is still a bad

habit to water in the heat of summer.

FERTILIZING THE LAWN

Who ever started this mania of fertilizing the lawn? You do know what you are doing, don't you. You are making the grass grow more, so you can cut it more. This is an insane notion someone has had. They must have owned a fertilizer company or a lawn mower factory. I have good soil and I have fertilized the lawn about three times in the 45 years I have lived here. My lawn is always green (plus a few dandelions that I allow to live there). When I do cut the grass, I always leave the clippings and never rake them off. The clippings may not look so good, but they soon dry up and next cutting they become organic matter down amongst the thatch to become fertilizer and also to hold moisture. I like to relax in summer and barbeque steaks or chops, so why be cutting the lawn twice as much from fertilizing. Relax, my friend, enjoy the summer. Put a light application of low nitrogen, high phosphorous and potash fertilizer on in the cooler fall months if you feel the lawn needs to thicken up a bit.

Now you know how I feel about fertilizing a lawn.

When I do fertilize, I would use only a farm fertilizer 6-24-24 in the fall, or 16-16-16 in the spring, from your local co-op or farm store, or fertilizer plant. This is your most economical route and does every bit the same job as the best that is available and advertised anywhere. Use early in Spring or later in fall only to prevent any burning happening.

Never use Aeroprills 33-4%N (if you can buy a bag) or Urea 46%N, as they only make the grass grow rank green with the high nitrogen content and then leave the plant weak when the nitrogen is used up.

Use a balanced fertilizer (triple whatever) or high Phosphorous and Potash fertilizers as the 6 - 24 - 24 suggested above for fall application. You can use this same 6 - 24 - 24 as a general fertilizer on every other outdoor plant that you grow, be it vegetable, flower, tree or shrub. I use it in my garden of vegetables and daylilies. It works! and is quite economical in 25 kg. or 50 lb. bags. The Phosphorous and Potash work in the plants to build strong stem, branching, flowering and fruiting and act as the ripener for seeds, and fruits of all kinds. The only other fertilizer I use is a soluble 15-30-15 as a plant booster, and soluble 20-20-20 for a seedling starter as it maintains a balance of nutrients.

I do not own a maple tree, but every year the wind brings me some maple leaves, Sometimes great heaps of them. My neighbour told me when I complained at the raking chore that the lawnmower used every two days back and forth would chop them all into mulch and moisture holding rotting organic leaf matter. This is another type of natural fertilizing of the lawn without adding nutrients out of a fertilizer bag. The rotting leaf particles help hold moisture in the hot summer weather.

FERTILIZE OR NOT?

• Don't fertilize too often, relax and let grass grow another week.
• Have a rest in the shade, then Barbeque for supper
• Refrain from high nitrogen 'N' fertilizers (nitrogen always displayed the first number in any fertilizer analysis)
• Use a high phosphorus and potash fertilizer (second and third displayed in any fertilizer analysis), for all general home landscape and garden fertilizing.

• If you must fertilize your lawn with high nitrogen fertilizer, I guess, I'll see you on the lawn tractor mowing the grass, from my easy chair, here in the shade.

THE DUST STORMS ARE OVER

Back in the 1930's in my area of Southern Ontario that we refer to as the banana belt of Ontario, they began to grow flue cured tobacco on the sandy lands. There was money to be made. Everyone was smoking cigarettes, so there was a great need for good tobacco. Land was cleared and worked and tobacco planted where ever they found sandy land. Great crops of tobacco were harvested, and people had jobs harvesting it. All was rosy in the tobacco industry as it was growing. Tobacco processing companies came, warehouses were built, auction barns built and a tobacco marketing board was formed

AND THEN THE PREVAILING WINDS BEGAN TO BLOW.

Great dust storms formed from the open fields in the fall when land was worked. Great dust storms formed when the land was worked in the spring before planting. Farms were blowing away in the wind.

AND THEN WERE PLANTED THE CEDAR HEDGE ROWS

Cedar hedge rows were planted crossways of the prevailing winds. Most winds in our area come from Southwest and from the Northwest and anywhere in between those. Only occasionally would you get a wind directly out of North, East or South. We still had dust storms until the cedars grew a bit taller and then the winds that picked up the sandy soils into dust storms were becoming less and less severe. Today these windbreaks are ten to twenty feet high and work near to 100% to control dust storms. New Canadians come in from Europe and cut them down, but soon replant when they have a dust storm or two come along. They soon find out why they were there.

Around your home property, use this same windbreaking to protect against the driving winds of all seasons. In the resulting protected areas, made by planting trees, shrubs and erecting fencing, you can grow more tender plants that would not, otherwise, be able to withstand driving winter winds or scorching summer sunshine. Position your windbreak trees, shrubs or fencing on the western side of your lot to make these protected areas. As the trees and shrubs grow they will protect better when larger.

• I relate the true story above to show the reason for planting a few shrubs and trees for windbreaks.

Happy Gardening !