Basic Lawn Care Help

[glownthedark]

I have tried being organic in my yard for about two years but I am not real good at it. The biggest problem I have is knowing when to do everything. It always seems I am doing everything too late and it doesn't do much good or not at all. I live in Lewisville and I have a combination of St Augustine and Bermuda grass with a lot of Dallis Grass, Johnson Grass, Crabgrass and other assorted weeds. My yard looks much better than when I moved in but I know it can look better.

I would really appreciate somebody telling me a schedule on what to put out and when I should put them out so that I can improve my yard and keep the synthetic chemicals out. Thank you for your assistance.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

1. Water deeply once per week. Deeply means for about an hour or more. The idea is to make it a full 7 days or more between watering, so you need a lot of water. Deep watering should take out the shallow rooted weeds that cannot live in the dry soil between watering.

2. Mow the grass at the highest setting for your mower. Tall grass, especially tall St Augustine, will grow deeper roots and work together with #1 above. Mow weekly at the high setting. Tall grass will also shade out the other weeds, especially bermuda.

3. Fertilize with corn meal or other organic fertilizer 2 or 3 times per year. I'm in San Antonio suggest fertilizing on Valentine's Day and Fourth of July for others this far south. If you can find the latest freeze date in your area, fertilize about a month before that date. Fourth of July should still be good for a second app. The application rate is 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. The third application would come in September at the same rate.

If you can afford corn gluten meal in your area, it acts like a preemergent weed seed suppressor. The application rate is 40 pounds per 1,000 square feet. This would be used on your first application date. You will not need any other fertilizer if you use CGM.