Best Time To Fertilize Your Lawn
Spring means more daylight and warmer temperatures. After a cold winter, this is the weather your grass is craving. If youre unsure of exactly when to lay down your first feeding, you can base it off of the temperature. Ideally, the ground should be around 55 degrees Fahrenheit. Depending on where you live, March to April is the best time to fertilize your lawn. Its also best if your yard is watered a few days before you want to apply the fertilizer, whether thats from rain or a sprinkler.
Fertilizer provides your grass with extra nutrients that help to prevent crabgrass and allow it to grow green and thick. To ensure youre laying the feed correctly, start around the perimeter of your lawn. Then, you can start filling in the middle. Similar to mowing your yard, you should go back and forth in straight lines. And you should always use a lawn spreader instead of your hands to complete the job.
Now that you know that spring is the best time to fertilize your lawn, here are some other helpful tips that will keep your grass thriving.
When To Use Compost
Compost does more than feed grass it also builds and feeds soil. Compost contains microorganisms, micronutrients and organic matter items that nourish soil and foster a healthy underground environment in your lawn. When should you use compost? Spread a thin layer over lawns in early spring to fuel strong growth. Any time you plan to aerate, spread compost after aerating to improve soil and give roots a boost. It’s also a good idea to apply compost before overseeding thin turf. Add compost to a lawn by the shovelful in several places.
How Often Should You Put Epsom Salt On Your Lawn
Some homeowners like to use Epsom salt as a natural lawn fertilizer in the spring to facilitate lush green growth. Epsom salt contains magnesium, which is key to seed germination, chlorophyll production, and improving the uptake of nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur.
To try this method, add 2 tablespoons to each gallon of water used on the lawn. If you have a sprinkler system, lightly sprinkle the salt directly atop the grass and then allow the system to water it into the sod.
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The Downside Of Liquid Fertilizers
Liquids are highly effective when used consistently throughout the growing season, but products can add it up quickly for homeowners trying to maintain their lawns on a budget.
For more cost-conscious buyers, we recommend testing out liquid products as a supplement to granular fertilizer before fully committing to an all-liquid maintenance plan.
Fall Fertilizing Can Aid Your Lawn Through The Winter
Dont fertilize your lawn in the fall because you dont want to get your grass growing before winter arrives Fall lawn fertilization does sound a little counterintuitive. After all, why on earth would we want to ramp up growth in the fall, just as our lawns are trying to hunker down for winter? But fall fertilization done properly will keep your grass happy during winter and get it off to a roaring start in the spring.
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Will Lawn Feed Make My Grass Grow
There are 16 nutrients that grass need for optimal health. Lawn feed usually contains ample concentrations to help support grass growth. Common commercial lawn feed is rich in sulfur, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, nitrogen, and potassium. Using lawn feed will help your grass to grow, but it is important not to double up on lawn feed and fertilizer. Doing so may over enrich the soil which can actually have a negative effect on the health of your grass. Lawn feed is most effective when your grass just needs a small boost to help it grow as opposed to a regular schedule of balanced nutrition.
Weed and feed products are also an effective way to help your grass grow and banish weeds at the same time. The formula contains grass healthy nutrients in addition to pre-emergent herbicides. This type of lawn feed will kill existing weeds in your grass, prevent the growth of new weeds, and support healthy grass growth all at the same time. Always take the condition of your grass into account before using an all-in-one product. Lawns that dont have weeds should never have a pre-emergent herbicide applied.
The First Number Listed Represents The Percentage Of Nitrogen In The Bag
Nitrogen helps your grass to appear green, lush and thick. Nitrogen aids in the creation of chlorophyll, which is responsible for producing the green pigment in the grass and is the compound by which plants use sunlight to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water.
Nitrogen or N stimulates new root growth. Many early spring fertilizers will have a higher Nitrogen level to give the lawn a kick and get it growing early. It can help turf recover from environmental stresses and injury. An application of nitrogen in the spring, and then timely spreading throughout the growing season will help fortify turf to better withstand environmental stresses such as heat and insects.
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The Best Way To Enrich Poorly Performing Soil
Any soil tasked with nurturing a fast-growing plant will eventually run out of nutrients. If your soil is performing poorly, we have a few suggestions. Poorly performing soil can be enriched naturally by composting. Once your waste has been broken down into relatively small portions, spread it over your grass in equal parts. The nutrients from the compost will soak into the soil which will help it to perform more efficiently. If you want to enrich your soil a bit more, you can also use natural manure. Animal manure may have a strong odor, but it is rich in the top nutrients grass needs to grow. Not only is the manure good for the soil, but it is also easier for plants to process for their nutritional needs. Of course, wood ash and grass fertilizer are also great options to bring your soil back up to snuff.
Do I Have To Prepare My Lawn For Winter
Yes ideally. The fall is the best time to show your lawn a bit of love. After all, if you want a lush, green garden for the summer, you need to look after your lawn all year.
To survive the colder weather, your lawn needs to be healthy, so take some time in the fall to fertilize, aerate, and re-sow your grass.
Before you begin your lawns annual pamper session, you need to know two things: what your soils pH is, and what plant hardiness zone you live in. Its also helpful to know what type of grass you have, especially if youre planning to replant any bald patches of lawn, but also because cool season and warm season grasses need different fertilizers.
Why do you need to know your soils pH? This helps establish how much fertilizer you need, as it varies between soil types. Too much fertilizer can burn the grass, while too little wont do much at all. The healthiest lawn has a neutral pH, but you can adjust an acidic or alkaline garden with special treatments. You can pick up pH testing kits in your local garden center or hardware store, or take a look online.
Knowing your plant hardiness zone is important for most gardening tasks. Most gardening instructions use this zoning system, and it gives you a good idea of common climate factors, such as when to expect the first frost and what time of year plants go dormant. Find out what zone you live in by typing your zip code into the USDA plant hardiness zone map.
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Ifa 4plus Lawn Care Fertilizer Program
The IFA 4Plus Lawn Care program is locally formulated and specifically designed to help produce the best results in the Intermountain West. With two of our four applications, we also use Omnicote Technology that allows micronutrients such as Zinc, Iron, and Manganese to coat every pellet of fertilizer and thus getting an even nutrient distribution on the lawn. These elements may not require the quantity of the three major elements, but they are just as important.
Using A Handheld Broadcast Spreader
A handheld broadcast spreader works well for fertilizing small lawn areas. Walk evenly and slowly, and be sure to overlap distribution patterns slightly with each pass. A small spreader like this also works really well when you have shady areas in your lawn that require a different fertilizer rate than the sunny sections. Some fertilizers combine an herbicide with the lawn food. These products are sold as weed-and-feed lawn care products and are applied using a lawn spreader.
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Dark Green Leaf Color
When there is a deficiency of phosphorus, it wont be long before your grass accumulates carbohydrates through photosynthesis. This will lead to foliar deficiency, evident as a dark green color of the leaves as opposed to bright green color. At times, the entire grass affected will have this color, while in other instances, it will only be pigmented in some of the leaves.
Does Fertilizer Go Bad
So, now that youre ready to start fertilizing, maybe youre wondering about that old bag of fertilizer at the back of your shed? How long is that fertilizer good for? Fortunately, the nutrients in fertilizer dont break down if they are kept dry. Even if humidity has caused the fertilizer to clump, simply break any lumps you find with a hammer and you are good to go.
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Is Overseeding Worth It
Before implementation, make sure that it worthy of doing so. It may not cost you a lot financially. It takes so much patience and time from your daily life.
As reality shows overseeding works and it is worthy of the efforts you put on your lawn. With proper planning and care, you may find your yard is smiling. Lawn generally gets greener, smoother, thicker with proper implementation. If your lawn recovers well, your investment in overseeding will look reasonable.
Choosing Fertilizers For Home Lawns
Burned grass is a drawback of fast release nitrogen fertilizers.
Fertilizing is an important lawn care practice, as it influences grass color, ability to recover from stress, and helps prevent weed invasions and disease. There are important features to consider when choosing lawn fertilizers at the local garden center.
Nitrogen , phosphorus , and potassium are the three major nutrients needed by lawns. Nitrogen is the nutrient required most, although too much nitrogen can cause excessive topgrowth, leading to assorted problems. Percent nitrogen is always the first of three numbers on the fertilizer bag, followed by phosphorus and potassium. For example, a 18-6-12 fertilizer contains 18 percent nitrogen. This number is important because it determines how much fertilizer is needed. In most cases, a rate of one pound of nitrogen per 1,000 square feet is suggested for each fertilizer application to the lawn. If high percentage nitrogen fertilizers are used, then less actual fertilizer product is needed to supply that one pound compared to fertilizers with low percent nitrogen. Recommended ratios of N-P-K for lawn fertilizers include 3:1:2 or 4:1:2.
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What Is The Suitable Time Of Overseeding On Your Lawn
After preparing the areas of the lawn by mowing and raking, it is the right time to do the needful steps accordingly.
- Mow the lawn shorter than usual.
- Eliminate all the clippings from the lawn so that the lawn can get sunlight and water.
- Use a rake to loosen the soil of the lawn, so that seeds can well contact with soil, and have a chance to increase the development of seeds.
- Choose your seeds.
- Check the overseeding rate of the grass seeds.
- Use a spreader and spread seeds around the lawn according to the instruction given on the label.
- Spread seeds with a logical process like do it when air is quiet and avoid the windy day.
- Be ensured to distribute seeds equally.
How To Prevent Fertilizer Burn
Fertilizer burn can be easily prevented by simply reading the label on fertilizer products, and using them according to manufacturer directions.
Labels on leading products indicate application methods, appropriate rates, and the conditions to prevent lawn and plant damage.
As mentioned earlier, applying more fertilizer is not always the best practice, because fertilizers do contain salts and other nutrients, which are digested by plants at a certain rate.
When fertilizing an area, its a good idea to take accurate measurements to prevent over-application.
Further, you should avoid the guesswork of fertilizer quantities by using a proper measuring cup. In fact, you should have a set of measuring cups for fertilizer use only, and take the time to measure the product before application.
Fertilizer can easily leak out of the spreader hopper when filling, stopping, or turning. You can either close the hopper when performing these actions or be extra careful as even the smallest amount of excess fertilizer can cause fertilizer burn.
Plants that are already suffering from bad health due to poor soil or weather conditions wont be able to process fertilizer normally.
Instead of nourishing your plants, applying fertilizer can adversely affect the condition of ill plants, which is why its important to wait until the plants are in good health before fertilizer application.
Final Thoughts
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Can I Fertilize My Lawn Every 2 Weeks
To avoid over-fertilizing, applying a fertilizer every two weeks is not recommended. Fertilizing as often as every two weeks will likely lead to problems such as lawn burn, excessive grass growth, as well as polluted water that can lead to toxic algae growth. A natural, healthier way of feeding your lawn every two weeks would be to simply leave the grass clippings on the lawn surface after mowing your grass.
Types Of Potassium Fertilizers
I use two versions of potassium products to apply to a grass lawn. You can also view your compost and compost teas as alternative options for getting potassium to apply to your lawn, but they are not exact and will provide an unknown quantity to the grass. Using a granular fertilizer or a liquid soluble fertilizer that you spray on the grass with the garden hose is perfect for applying to a potassium deficient lawn. If you conduct a soil sample before applying you can be exact in your application of a granular product and like granular potash. This is the best way to get a lawn up to specs quickly after performing a site soil assessment.
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Do I Need To Fertilize My Lawn Every Year Yes And Here Are Some Tips On How To Do It Correctly
Your soil supplies some of the nutrients that turf grass needs but most soils are not able to provide all of them during the entire growing season. A healthy and actively growing lawn uses a great deal of energy. Fertilizer helps your lawn stay healthy by promoting new leaf and root growth. Read on to learn more about why it is important to fertilize your lawn.
Why Lawns Need Nutrient Replacement
Very often the cycling of nutrients is cut short on home lawns. This is partially due to necessary maintenance practices needed to produce quality turf. To complicate things further, some turf species and certain turf situations, such as sports turf, require intense maintenance and added nutrients to meet the high level of expectation. This requires the removal of fallen leaves, twigs and branches, and even grass clippings, that would otherwise have returned nutrients back to the soil. Those lost nutrients must be replaced.
What is Fertilizer?
Can I Avoid Fewer Mud Puddles and Patches?
The use of fertilizer will strengthen your grass roots so they can quickly absorb more water than unhealthy roots. This firms your soil and lessens the chances of water pooling to form messy mud puddles and bare patches.
Will Fertilizers Help with Weed Control?
A thick lush lawn with strong roots can choke out weeds by preventing them from taking a foothold in the first place.
Can Fertilizers Encourage Fewer Pest?
A Few Tips to Remember Before Fertilizing
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What Order Should You Follow
Lawn owners spread seeds and fertilizer in different ways some do the one first, and the other next, and some in the reverse direction. However, you can apply both the items separately, if seeds immediately, following the fertilizer next. It does not matter which order you follow to spread seeds first or next.
Two methods you can follow for the better results.
Method-1: You can apply fertilizer first. But, you have to ensure overseeding your lawn at least 6-8 week after spreading fertilizer.
Method-2: You can also plan to apply fertilizer after a certain time later from the overseeding on your lawn. You need to give attention to the seedgermination and their growth so that you can apply starter fertilizer according to the grass type you like to grow.
But make sure that, before overseeding, you have to aerate your ground carefully.
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What Do You Do When Youre Doing All Of The Right Things
Ha, yes this does have everything to do with business .
When youre doing all of the right things you need to start to look at your ingredients.
In this case
- Water The water was the same water the previous owners used. Im pretty sure they didnt fly in some pristine Chilean mountain spring water or anything. And I was watering 4-5 times a week some weeks just to make for damn sure the lawn got enough water. So, I ruled the water out.
- Maintenance I mowed weekly, and that spring I aerated and de-thatched the lawn. So, maintenance check.
- Fertilizer This is really the main variable that I didnt know what the previous owners used. But, I was doing what Mr. Scott told me to do. And the lawn still looked like a little league field in late August after 800 games have been played on it.
So, to make a long metaphor short I tried a different fertilizer to help my lawn grow.
This time it was a 16-16-16 blend.
