Soil/Yard Renovation

[LaurieOttinger]

Thanks to the N. Tx. Municipal Water District burying a 5' dia. sewer line through my yard, I get the unique opportunity to start from scratch and renovate my yard. My questions are:

1) Where can I purchase a large quantity (>100 cu. yds.) of cotton burr compost in the Dallas area.
2) what other ammendments besides cotton burr compost should I till in?
3) other other suggestions?

Our soil is 18" of dark clay on top of limestone rock. Most of the top soil was removed and the rock was backfilled over the pipeline. Needless to say, not the best soil for a yard.

Thanks in advance,
George (and Laurie) Ottinger

[jrosto]

Soil Building Systems (http://www.soilbuildingsystems.com) is a good source of bulk compost and rock powders such as lava sand and green sand. I am not sure if they carry expanded shale or not.

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I hope I'm not too late to offer an opinion.

1. I can't help with this in Dallas, but I know in the Panhandle there are literally mountains of cotton burr compost. I'm talking about one pile that's 30-40 feet high and about 100-200 feet square. That's the biggest man made pile of anything I've ever seen. It literally hides a huge barn behind it. 100 cubic yards of compost will cover 100,000 square feet (more than 2 acres) at the recommended rate of 1 cubic yard per 1,000 square feet. As long as you don't have grass, you can use as much compost as you can afford, but after the first 1/4 inch of depth you are mulching.

2. Don't till anything in. Mother Nature always (Always, ALWAYS) works from the top down. With the exception of pigs, Mother Nature has no real diggers to turn over soil like a tiller does. All you have to do is rely on the rain (or irrigation), insects, worms, and microbes to move the surface applied stuff around for you.

Apparently Howard talks a lot about shale and rock powders. Down here in San Antonio we don't talk so much about that. We do talk about greensand and I can tell you for a fact that that stuff works when nothing else will. In fact I'm not so sure greensand might be all you need for a lawn. I know I'm Mr. Protein, but I've seen remarkable results in St Augustine with greensand alone and nothing else (including no irrigation). And at the risk of breaking your budget, I don't really get the remarkable results except where I apply greensand at a rates of 100 pounds per 1,000 square feet. The bag says 40 pounds per 1,000 but my grass stays much greener much longer in the areas where I went real heavy with it. My front yard is 2,000 square feet so I would use 200 pounds or 5 bags. In this one case, more is better. STILL, I would NEVER till it in. Just lay it gently on top and don't be tempted to scratch it in, till, dig, spade, fork, lift, or anything else. Just water it gently. You may walk on it...just don't scuff your feet :D .

3. Other suggestions: If you are starting all over from scratch with your entire lawn and not just the pipeline, I would strongly suggest you get a guy with a tractor and a box blade to relevel and grade your entire lot. He will tear out any ground covers along the way, so don't do anything until after he's finished. He should leave you a perfect surface for immediate spreading of compost and laying sod or seed. And the surface he leaves you will drain away from all the buildings so you don't have to worry about that (if you were worrying).

Go to the Lawns forum and read the top posts and several recent ones on lawn care. There might be something in there that will help you. You'll note that I don't follow Howard's advice exactly. We're both organic but we both have different opinions about what's needed. Neither one of us is going to come out and twist your arm if you follow the other guy. We get along fine.

Good luck to you. Too bad it wasn't an oil or ga$ pipeline!!

[jrosto]

David: How often do you put down that much greensand?

[tommyr]

David, is this application of greensand a one time deal, yearly or what. Does this rate also apply to vegetable gardens?

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

I put it down following any torrential rains we have. The heavy rains really cause a chlorosis problem in our limestone soils. Greensand is the only product that works to fix it. Otherwise I sort of wait for the next torrential rain to apply it.

If you are growing bed plants that tend to chlorosis, then it applies. If not, then leave it alone.

[LaurieOttinger]

David,
I certainly appreciate your help. As always, there are several layers of this onion to peel to get the whole story.

I found a dealer in Garland that carries the Back to Nature cotton burr compost (which comes from the Panhandle btw). The dealer also recommended to NOT till in the compost ahead of time. He insisted that I call him AFTER the NTMWD subcontractor finished the soil prep (which will be as little as they can get away with), reinstalling the sprinkler system, and laying the sod. I was surprised by this but your Mother Nature analogy makes sense. I just remeber my father keeping a extensive garden when I was growing up and I remember tilling in compost to prep the soil. I guess old habits are hard to break (or I am comparing apples to oranges, i.e. - garden to lawn)

Obviously, my concern is to get it right the first time, this time. We have been in the house for three years and the common bermuda was never healthy or vigorous. The biggest problem appeared to be a fungus. I applied corn meal over the last year but didn't seem to get any good results. Thus, I always questioned the overall health of the soil beneath and the lack of soil prep before the builder sodded the yard. I tried to address this by top dressing with compost last year in an attempt to get the microbe level built up.

Since the soil is bare at this point, it is the perfect time to get it right this time. Sounds like there isn't much I can do at this point though. That's just as well, I wasn't looking forward to tilling the yard in this heat anyway :).

[Dchall_San_Antonio]

The best argument against tilling is the well documented travels of the early pioneers through the Great Plains. They all remarked as to the fertility of the soil and how it would be perfect for farming. The farmers arrived nearly 200 years ago and today there is barely any topsoil left. It has all washed down the Missouri and Mississippi. There's a great book on the subject available to read for free on the Internet. The title is The Ploughman's Folly. Go to

http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/flknreh/

Bermuda is hardly ever affected by fungal disease. The three biggest problems with bermuda are these

1. Not enough water. Bermuda needs exactly as much water as all the other grasses if you want it to really thrive. Water deeply and infrequently.

2. Mowed too high. Bermuda will actually shade itself out if you let it get too high. It really looks good when it is mowed down to 1/2 inch at least weekly if not more frequently.

3. Not enough fertilizer. Bermuda is a fertilizer hog. It can use a low protein fertilizer like ORDINARY corn meal every month during the growing season. It can use a high protein fertilizer like soy or corn GLUTEN meal every other month.

After that you might get a grub or other insect problem. Beneficial nematodes are the best cure for insects. BN carry a disease that is fatal to 250 species of pests and hardly any beneficial insects. Also there is no effect on mammals, fish, birds, toads, or lizards.

[northwesterner]

No one mentioned switching grasses to you. Did you go with Bermuda again, or take this perfect opportunity to switch over to buffalo grass? What I wouldn't give to nuke the Bermuda in my yard and start over again! (Leaving my trees and shrubs alone, of course!)

If the Bermuda is still slow, perhaps combining the two would be timely. Howard talks about mixed turf grasses as being a fine arrangement. Have you given this any thought, and was was the outcome?

Northwesterner