lawn winterize

[Jim]

organic!

[Billy]

In a word, yes.

My point should have been that the binding of chem ferts (salts) in the soil is inadvertent and wasn't planed by Monsanto, Dow, et al.. If you have diversified micro-organisms growing in your soil, they take up nitrogen compounds (NH4+ and NO3-) during their life cycles and release it to plants when they die. A little fish emulsion or manure from time to time should be sufficient. Otherwise the breakdown of carbohydrates from from lawn clippings or compost will keep the micro-organisms happy and fed.

[do_see]

Around here, you can have a few leaves one day, and 3 feet the next.

[do_see]

I'll link a few pictures later.

[do_see]

I will argue that point with you also.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Argue what? That there are situations where a mower won't handle the leaves? I'm listening.

[BR]

Good piece! Seriously, I don't want waist high grass and weeds right up close to the house, so we just mow the weeds couple times a month three inches high with a mulching mower. Eventually, the area becomes a lawn, as the goldenrod doesn't like being cut short, only plants that prefer being three inches high survive.

[do_see]

Well. I have a Tank and a Toro commercial so I guess I don't have that problem either.

[JoeSpareBedroom]

Right. Some mowers have limits as to what they'll mulch. And then, there's the infamous confluence of factors that's sometimes unavoidable, like when my neighbor's sycamore decides to dump all its leaves at 3:00 PM, followed by rain at 4:00 PM, lasting for the next 3 days, with heavy winds that shlep even more leaves from the other neighbors' yards. When every square yard contains 4 bushels of wet leaves, my mower says "Yeah...right".

[do_see]

Yeah. You understand.

[Eggs Zachtly]

[...]

And, we all know there are no weeds with a growth habit of under three inches. *rolls eyes*

Eventually, from /only/ mowing "a couple times a month" the area doesn't "become a lawn", it becomes a patch of three inch high weeds.

[Ann]

Eggs Zachtly expounded:

Followups reset. Why do you keep trying to redirect? There are people in rec.gardens who are interested as well.

[Steveo]

Yes they're are.

[Steveo]

A lawn is anything that covers the bare soil to a few people in this NG.

[Steveo]

A lawn?

[Steveo]

Now my gutter's are full!

[Harry K]

Yep. Wet leaves won't mow-mulch for crap. I even have a birch tree that I swear drops green leaves. They don't chop up well either but I do it.

Harry K

[Jim]

several of the erosion control meadow strips on the Farm have evolved over the years into rather nice areas of tall fescue by only mowing them with a gyro [bushhog] mower set to about

6 or 8 inches cutting height. they get mowed 6 or 8 times a year. the fescue is allowed each year to grow tall and produce it's own seed for over or reseeding. the soybean fields contained within the erosion control meadow strips produce large amounts of organic nitrogen which finds it's way into the grass and the annual lime applications of the bean land bleeds over onto these fescue strips. people have seen these and remarked how they wish their lawn looked that good. most lawns in suburbanite land are diminished by the over application of cheap chemical fertilizers. the people who have figured out composting are way ahead in the sporting event known as gardening and their carry over knowledge resulting from their understanding of how there is life in that compost pile enables them to have the better healthier lawns through allowing all living things to work in harmony with one another.

[Eggs Zachtly]

No they weren't. You only partially reset them. So, do you have a double standard about crossposts? You only want them crossposted to where *you* frequent?

I have no interest in misc.rural [1] and I don't read rec.gardens on a regular basis, but in the future should both a.h.l.g. and r.g. be in the crossposted message, *and* my reply is relevant [2] to both groups, tho I detest crossposts, I'll leave them. Fair enough?

[1]. Which you didn't reset. And, which is apparently where the post I replied to originated, unless it was a post by a nym-shifter. I've little time to do that in-depth of a search to know if it was a nym-shifter, tho I doubt it was. [2] I replied to only a part of BR's post dealing with "lawn", which I felt was more relevant to a.h.l.g.

Make sense? =)

[Ann]

Eggs Zachtly expounded:

NO, it was late and I didn't notice the other.

Not really.

Just leave the follups alone and you don't have to keep track of anything.

{shrug} Not really. There are many in rec.gardens participating in this thread, and interested. I only snip when it's a troll post and I know a post about roses shoudln't go to say, alt.repair.toyota. Other than that, when a conversation is going in and out of three or four newsgroups and everyone seems to be participating I leave it alone.