Good News ! The EPA has reduced the annual limits of nitrogen and phosphorous that can be put in the Chesapeake Bay by the six watershed states. Virginia allocation was 53.4 million pounds of nitrogen and 5.4 million pounds of phosphorous, the second highest. I’m not sure how this will be accomplished or how each city and county gets their limits set but it will be interesting to follow the process.
Keep up your great work in trying to help clean our waters. Happy Earth Day
In future post, I will elaborate on the lawn tips.
Please become aware of the Chesapeake Clean Water and Ecosystem Restoration Act that is pending in the congress and the senate. Contact your congressmen and senators to voice your support.
I hope everyone had a chance to read my last post concerning soil testing. If you haven’t taken your sample , there is still time this spring to do so.
Your next step is to determine what type of grass you are growing. Generally, if your lawn is brown this winter you have a warm season grass, if most of your lawn is some shade of green, you have a cool season grass. Warm season grasses include bermudagrass, zoysiagrass, St Augustine, and centipedegrass. Cool season grass include Kentucky bluegrass, tall fescue, and fine fescue.
Whether you determine you have a warm or cool season lawn, please do not be tempted to fertilize your lawn in the spring. You can save on the cost of fertilizers and help reduce the amount of pollutants going into the rivers and bays.
Warm season grasses should fertilized in the late spring and and summer and cool season grasses should be fertilized in the late summer and fall.
For more details visit your local extension web site or office. I will follow with more information in future posts.
Please help to keep our waters clean.
It is time to start thinking about taking a soil sample of your property. In general, it is better to take samples of both the front and back yards and any other areas that are used for different purposes, like a vegetable garden.
It a very simple process:
Use a small clean plastic bucket and a clean trowel or small shovel (very important)
Collect a small amount of soil from 5-6 spots in your yard on a random zig-zag pattern approximately 4″ deep
Place the soil from each spot in the bucket, removing any debris and blend together
Put the blended soil into a sandwich size baggie, filling about 2/3 of the bag. Mark the sample location on the bag
Fill out the lab’s form with all required information and attach to the sample Lynnhaven River Now Soil Sample Form.
Follow the detail instructions on the submittal form
Look for the exciting results in a few days
Another minor setback for cleaner water.
House Bill 329 (The bill concerning usage of phosphorus containing fertilizers) will be carried over to the 2011 General Assembly session
It appears the bill did get the industry’s attention.
I was planning to continue my discussion of watersheds but a trip to the hardware store yesterday for a plumbing part changed my mind.
As I walked through the front door, a new display of stacks of fertilizer bags greeted me. You say, so what.
Referring back to lawn run off, our lawns don’t need to be fertilized in spring. It doesn’t matter if you have cool or warm season grasses.
Warm season grasses should be fertilized in the early summer as it comes out of dormancy.
Cool season grasses should be fertilized in the fall, starting in early September.
This push to sell fertilizer now is purely a market ploy and can only hurt our waterways.
Get a soil sample done this time of year, so when it does come time to fertilize, you will know the proper amount to apply.
