Good Bug, Bad Bug
- On June 18, 2018
- By Meleah
- In Organic Gardening, Turf Grass, Uncategorized
1
Normally I enjoy gardening in the spring. But after reading seemingly endless headlines about spewing lava, flash floods and gaping sink holes while enduring our freak May blizzard followed by our freak May heat wave, I can’t enjoy myself because I keep wonder whether I’m acting like one of those stalwart band members on the deck of the sinking Titanic. ‘La, la, la … I’m pretty sure the world is coming to an end, but I think I’ll just plant these zinnias and cut back all my pretty shade plants that burned to a crisp in the boiling hot May sun … la, la, la.’
Dragonflies hold their wings flat and parallel to the ground.
It helped that while I worked I was often able to watch dragonflies. It’s been a few years since we’ve had a lot of dragonflies in the yard, so I’m glad to see them back. I read up on dragonflies during their last visit and learned, among many other things, that I have been calling some insects dragonflies when they are actually damselflies. Both aquatic insects belong to the same order, Odonata, but if you look closely you’ll see that damselflies have slimmer bodies and their eyes are separated and somewhat protruding rather than flat and centered on their heads.
Damselflies hold their wings like butterflies do.
To easily tell the two apart, look at their wings when they are at rest. Dragonflies rest with their wings flat and parallel to the ground while damselflies hold their wings pressed together over their backs, like butterflies do. To learn more about these magical insects, go to the Minnesota Dragonfly Society’s site where you’ll find information on some of the 140 species that can be found in Minnesota. Nerd out more by getting yourself a nice dragonfly identification guide like Stokes Beginner’s Guide to Dragonflies by Blair Nikula, Jackie Sones and Donald and Lillian Stokes.
Bad Bugs—Japanese Beetles
Yes, in just over a month Japanese beetles will arrive and dive head first into having sex on our plants while also eating them and crapping all over the place during their god-forsaken 60-day life cycle. What can be done? I’ve said it before, but I want to say it again because people always ask about how to treat Japanese beetles: I don’t like to use chemicals to kill them or anything else. I just pluck (wear gloves) the gross beetles off of plants and toss them into a bucket of soapy water to DIE. If, however, you are thinking of trying to kill Japanese beetles with insecticides, University of Minnesota Extension Entomologist Jeff Hahn recently sent out an update letting people know that it is too late to do that this season because those suckers are already way too big to be affected by our puny chemical concoctions. You can get a jump on murdering next year’s beetle crop, though, if you apply insecticides to turfgrass from July through mid-September because that’s when females are laying fresh eggs.
Japanese beetles are hell bent on world domination.
But, before reaching for an insecticide, Hahn suggests that we ask ourselves why that seems like the answer. The reason: If grubs are destroying your lawn (usually large patches of yellow/brown grass but that can also be other things), and a good-looking lawn is important to you, then perhaps chemicals can help. If your aim, though, is to reduce the number of beetles having wild sex on your plants and just generally defiling your garden in innumerable ways, think again, because those monsters can fly a long way so treating your small patch of land will do zip.
And one more thing, if you do choose to use chemicals to kill Japanese beetles, please do some Googling to see what the preventative insecticides Hahn suggests (chlorantraniliprole, halofenizide, imidacloprid and chlothianidin) may also harm. I don’t know anything about most of these, but I can tell you that imidacloprid is a neonic and neonics harm bees, dragonflies and other insects.
Japanese beetles are no match for soapy water.
I’m explaining all of this, not because I want to shame people who feel they need to treat a problem. Rather, I think it is far too common for experts to tell people what they can use to treat this or that problem, but they don’t also explain how those treatments might affect other living creatures and/or the planet. In my experience, when I give people ALL of that information, they often decide using chemicals isn’t worth it. But even when they don’t, at least they had all of the tools they needed to make an informed choice. And who wouldn’t want that?
Safer Lawn Care Options Are On the Way
We ripped out our lawn over the last few years, and we don’t miss it one bit. Sparse and full of creeping Charlie and other weeds, it was ugly even before our dog Lily peed all over it and killed off spots one by one. I do realize, though, that a lot of people like turf grass and, even if they don’t, they’re not keen on ripping all of it up to put in gardens that they have to care for.
But what to do about all of those weeds? The truth is, if grass gets enough sun and is kept well-watered (about an inch each week); mowed to a slightly higher height of about 3 inches, which helps shade out weeds; and fertilized even once each year, it will grow fairly well and suffer few weed and disease problems. Unfortunately, many people don’t realize the difference these simple things can make, so they hire lawn care services to come and keep their yards looking good.
Having observed these services in action all over my neighborhood, I have to say, the results aren’t so hot. Trucks show up, guys jump out, and they promptly mow the grass right down to the nub. Then, they douse the scalped grass with all kinds of chemicals, including herbicides that usually contain 2,4-D. Popular because it’s cheap and easy to use, 2,4-D was concocted by scientists during World War II. It was one of the components of Agent Orange. And it is effective when it comes to killing things like clover, thistle and creeping Charlie, but it has remained controversial since it was released for public use in 1946.
Though the EPA says there is not enough data to conclude that the herbicide may pose some cancer risk, the International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified 2,4-D as being a substance that may cause cancer in humans. Studies are divided on both sides with many scientists being of the opinion that 2,4-D may be carcinogenic, particularly in the case of Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Even when these chemicals have dried, there is debate about when it is safe to come in contact with grass that has been treated with the herbicide. (You know how often you see those signs warning people and pets to stay off the grass until dry.)
Read More»Use Your Fall Leaves To Help Build Healthy Soil
We have two big, old oak trees in our yard and every fall, up until a few years ago, we would spend our October and early November weekends raking and bagging and raking and bagging until our hands blistered. Then, we would drag all those bags, bursting with leaves, to the curb to be hauled away. Every now and then, I noticed that someone would pull over, load our bags of leaves into their car and drive off. Why in the world would they want our leaves? I wondered. I soon found out.
For gardeners, or anyone with a lawn, really, fallen leaves are nutrient-rich, soil-building treasure—and they’re free! According to Mark Keaton, staff chair for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture, fallen leaves contain 50 to 80 percent of the nutrients trees extract from the soil during a growing season. They’re a particularly good source of nitrogen, offering anywhere from 1 to about 2 ½ percent nitrogen as they decompose.
What in the heck does that mean? Okay, figure that if a tree’s leaves offered 2 percent nitrogen it would take 100 pounds of dried leaves per 1,000 square feet to provide 2 pounds of nitrogen.That’s all the nitrogen 1,000 square feet of turf grass should need for a year, and it’s also about the right amount for a garden bed of that size, too.
But that’s not all. Research conducted by Alexander Kowalewski at Michigan State University has shown that using maple and oak leaves as mulch can help control dandelions in Kentucky bluegrass. Seriously! Go here to read that study. Unlike past studies in which leaves may have contained some pesticide residues, researchers at Michigan State used only pesticide-free leaves in their tests. And that reminds me to point out that it’s a good idea to avoid using anything but pesticide-free leaf mulch on gardens where edibles are grown.
The only hitch in this free fertilizer, and possibly weed killer, bonanza is that you need to mulch (which pretty much means shred) the leaves before you spread them on your lawn or garden. Whole leaves tend to mat down and hold moisture, causing mold and rot issues. Maple leaves are among the worst offenders because they’re so flat. Oak leaves are wavier, so they don’t mat down as thickly, which is good. But it’s still better to mulch all of the leaves you want to spread on your lawn or garden. Leaves break down faster when they’re mulched into small pieces, and they need to break down in order to make the nitrogen they offer available in the soil.
You don’t need any sort of fancy machine to mulch leaves. A regular old, cheap lawnmower will do just fine. You can watch this video we made at our house to demonstrate how to mulch leaves with a mower. Or you can just read the instructions I’ve written in the post below.
Read More»The Lasagna Method: Get Rid of Weeds and Sod the Easy Way
If I could somehow go back in time and give my new-gardener self just one piece of advice, it would be this: Use the lasagna method when starting a new garden bed. Of all the tough gardening chores, removing old weed-infested sod (or any sod, really) rates right up at the top of the This-Really-Bites list. Oh, how I wish I had known that I could just smother stuff rather than wrestle it out of the ground—the sheer force propelling me off to the chiropractor to fix my aching back once again.
There is no such thing as maintenance-free gardening. But gardening doesn’t have to be on a mission to kill you either. This is the beauty of the lasagna method. The goal is to keep light and, to some extent, air and water, from reaching the weeds and turf. There are no exact rules for this process, so I’ll explain what I do and you can modify the strategy as you see fit.
Read More»Lawn Follies
- On February 20, 2012
- By Meleah
- In Turf Grass
- 2
If you’ve never checked out Mary Gray’s garden blog, Black Walnut Dispatch, do it today. Just do it. No, of course you don’t have time, but do it anyway. Smart and funny—really, really funny, Mary Gray is a landscape designer in Burke Virginia, who just happens to have a creative writing background, too.
Her most recent post, “So I’ve Ripped Out My Lawn, Now What Do I Do,” takes turf grass re-purposing to a whole new level. And here I’ve been recommending people just flip old turf over to create berms.
Springtime tips
- On May 15, 2011
- By Meleah
- In Trees and Shrubs, Turf Grass
- 0
I haven’t done a spring tips column in a long time, and after the long, snowy winter we’ve had I figured now is as good a time as any to do so. We all try to push it and get out and garden as soon as the first sign of spring comes but, honestly, that’s a bad idea. Tromping around on wet soil does more harm than good.
And though I’ve seen a lot of people doing it, you definitely should not be raking your lawn when the soil is still cold and soggy — even if you are grossed out by all the horrible snow mold everywhere.
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