RAIN!!

Vanilla home remedy for personal use:
8 oz water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp. orange oil
Spray on liberally.


For ants, we use nematodes. We started off doing 4 applications a yr, early spring, mid-spring, early fall, late fall. Now we do it 2X/yr.

Dogs_N_Petunias, sugar is not a substitute for molasses, there are other things in the molasses besides carbohydrates. We have been using what we call the recipe for years. We spray our Brug cuttings in the hoop-house every day. There is a very long thread on the Brug forum.

Well, if it had worked any better, our lawn service would have quit on us, so for grass, I guess the sugar was sufficient. They said they always mowed our yard early in the day because it was so thick they wouldn't have energy to do it after they were hot and tired. LOL.

I think Howard Garrett has continued tweaking his recipe over the years.

www.epsomsaltcouncil.org/about_epsom_salt.cfm

I wasn't clear in my comment. I don't know if the Dirt Doctor recommends ES or not. I have used it for years and the difference is noticeable. While organic in every other way, we still use Scotts Turf Builder twice a year and add ES to it when it is spread. I use ES multiple times over the growing season on the tropicals and acid loving plants. They love it. But then there is the amended soil as well. Hard to know which is doing what.

Christi

This message was edited Sep 23, 2009 8:56 AM

Glenna, I think we might have the same lawn! :-) I love my thick, healthy, luxurious St Augustine. Walking on it is like walking on a silky, foam sponge.

How do you keep your lawn service from scalping it? Most lawn services mow everything like it's Bermuda -- short. I won't let anyone touch my lawn, but did hire a lawn service to edge. They scalped the St Aug so short around the house that it started to die. I fired them immediately.

Carla

Carla,
Our lawn service left our turf long and did a beautiful job edging and all. But we stopped using lawn service 2 years ago and now do it ourselves using a catcher because we have gone through about 5 years and many thousand $ fighting foundation problems due to water standing next to foundation. Main reason was a subdivision was built behind and above us and dumped drainage on us. But the service using mulching lawn mowers for many years caused the turf height to build up and get high enough to prevent landscape beds from draining like it should and it was so gradual we just didn't realize what was happening. So we've removed a huge amount of soil (looked like a bombing range or that scene from "Caddy Shack") and rebuilt everything except the back yard and that is next. Very long, frustrating and expensive experience.

The foundation engineer told us mulching lawn mowers are job security for foundation repair companies. LOL. We just decided we'd rather mow it ourselves than have to plow up the grass and lower the level every 10 years. AND I think our situation was worse than normal because we were using the organic sick tree mixture and our turf grew like nothing anyone had ever seen before, hence more build up from mowing.

Now, I'm sure that's more than anyone ever wanted to know. ROFL.

Yippee, we got another inch of rain. It's chilly today, in the 70's.
For fire ants I put a folger's coffee can of dry molasses in a bucket, add 8 oz orange oil, add 5 gallons of hot water and stir it up. I pour a gallon or so of the mix on fire ant mounds. It takes a couple of days, but it does kill them.