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This Week in the Garden
Garden wisdom dictates that you should start tending your lawn when the forsythia bloom, so for the past few days I've dragged myself out from behind the computer and, reluctantly, assessed my yard. It's a total mess: weeds, grubs, moles, bare patches where grass should be, tons of leaves stockpiled for mulching new planting beds. I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Last year at my previous home, I just let the lawn service do their thing. However by August, when we moved here, one of our dogs had developed a horrible contact dermatitis that turned into a fungal infection. The vet said she was probably allergic to the chemicals on the grass and I had to bathe her twice a week and slather smelly lotion on her daily. Knowing I wanted to go organic this season, I've been doing some research and I'm surprised at how easy the non-chemical approach really is.
Here is our dog, Rosie, lying on our ravaged lawn! I need to stop the grubs from doing additional damage. Grubs (various beetle larvae) feast underground on the grass roots until they emerge in the summer as beetles & then attack plants above ground. The moles are there to eat the grubs and worms so nuking the grubs will help with the mole problem as well. You can treat Japanese beetle larvae with a powder called milky spore. The problem is that since Japanese beetles can fly well they will just come over from your neighbors yard if you are serving up some of their favorite plants. They can be fairly well managed by hand-picking and those yellow hanging traps. However lawn grubs are generally other kinds of beetles which can be effectively treated with microscopic parasites called beneficial nematodes which also attack cutworms, fleas, ants, termites (and more!) These nematodes are completely safe around humans & pets and you can read about them from experts in California as well as at Cornell and Rutgers. The Cornell article has more information than anyone could want but if you scroll down to the end, they offer a list of reputable sources... some of which I've actually shopped with before. So I'm placing an order. Next I'll be working on getting the grass to grow again. Stay tuned!
I also spent a pleasant sunny Sunday afternoon raking the leftover leaves from under the shrubbery. I love to garden and it just felt so good to be outdoors again. I was surprised to see some very green weeds (pictured here) that had wintered over. My Woodlands mentor & friend, Jerry, told me I'd found garlic mustard, a weed that develops dense stands in the spring threatening trilliums & trout lilies and has potentially negative impacts on trees and forest health. Michigan State University states that garlic mustard may be one of the most potentially harmful and difficult to control invasive plants. Keeping our woods and forests healthy is an integral component in slowing global warming. Fortunately we've had a wet spring so far and the plants came up with hardly a tug. I filled two bushels full in about ten minutes and my compost pile was grateful for some fresh greens to heat it up a bit!
Garden wisdom dictates that you should start tending your lawn when the forsythia bloom, so for the past few days I've dragged myself out from behind the computer and, reluctantly, assessed my yard. It's a total mess: weeds, grubs, moles, bare patches where grass should be, tons of leaves stockpiled for mulching new planting beds. I've got a lot of work ahead of me. Last year at my previous home, I just let the lawn service do their thing. However by August, when we moved here, one of our dogs had developed a horrible contact dermatitis that turned into a fungal infection. The vet said she was probably allergic to the chemicals on the grass and I had to bathe her twice a week and slather smelly lotion on her daily. Knowing I wanted to go organic this season, I've been doing some research and I'm surprised at how easy the non-chemical approach really is.
Here is our dog, Rosie, lying on our ravaged lawn! I need to stop the grubs from doing additional damage. Grubs (various beetle larvae) feast underground on the grass roots until they emerge in the summer as beetles & then attack plants above ground. The moles are there to eat the grubs and worms so nuking the grubs will help with the mole problem as well. You can treat Japanese beetle larvae with a powder called milky spore. The problem is that since Japanese beetles can fly well they will just come over from your neighbors yard if you are serving up some of their favorite plants. They can be fairly well managed by hand-picking and those yellow hanging traps. However lawn grubs are generally other kinds of beetles which can be effectively treated with microscopic parasites called beneficial nematodes which also attack cutworms, fleas, ants, termites (and more!) These nematodes are completely safe around humans & pets and you can read about them from experts in California as well as at Cornell and Rutgers. The Cornell article has more information than anyone could want but if you scroll down to the end, they offer a list of reputable sources... some of which I've actually shopped with before. So I'm placing an order. Next I'll be working on getting the grass to grow again. Stay tuned!
I also spent a pleasant sunny Sunday afternoon raking the leftover leaves from under the shrubbery. I love to garden and it just felt so good to be outdoors again. I was surprised to see some very green weeds (pictured here) that had wintered over. My Woodlands mentor & friend, Jerry, told me I'd found garlic mustard, a weed that develops dense stands in the spring threatening trilliums & trout lilies and has potentially negative impacts on trees and forest health. Michigan State University states that garlic mustard may be one of the most potentially harmful and difficult to control invasive plants. Keeping our woods and forests healthy is an integral component in slowing global warming. Fortunately we've had a wet spring so far and the plants came up with hardly a tug. I filled two bushels full in about ten minutes and my compost pile was grateful for some fresh greens to heat it up a bit! 
