Eco-Friendly Gardening Helps you Beat the Heat

Last year, I wrote a post entitled "Eco-Friendly Gardens are No Sweat". In it, I mentioned how many of the actions that make a garden eco-friendly, such as incorporating native plants or using mulch to conserve water,  also end up requiring less work. This means that when others are out dragging around hoses to keep their landscape alive, we can be relaxing in our hammocks, deciding what we want to plant next.

I recently saw an article on Consumer Reports .org entitled The Slackers Guide to Lawn Care which goes a step further. Not only does it list many of the same eco-friendly items that I had in my "No Sweat" post, but it also lists how many hours you can save, annually, by adopting these "green" landscaping practices.

I'm using their estimates for annual time saved to repeat some info I've had in previous posts.  Most of the info is from our post, 10 Tips for a Green, Eco-Friendly Lawn. Be sure and jump over to the Consumer Report website and read their great, information packed post:

• Save up to 12 hours annually by letting the lawn go brown during dry spells -  Water Efficiently – The amount of water that your lawn needs will depend on the grass species and weather conditions. But remember, overwatering can often do more damage than under watering, to both the grass itself and to the local environment. In general, applying one inch of water per week is the recommendation when there is insufficient rainfall during the spring and summer.The best rule is to water only when the lawn begins to wilt from dryness –– when the color dulls and compressed footprints stay visible when you walk across your grass.
• Save up to 8 hours annually by fertilizing less frequently - Fertilize in the Fall for a Healthy Lawn and Community - Before you fertilize, test your soil to learn what, if anything, it needs. Applying too much fertilizer can damage the lawn and is a major source of water pollution. Contrary to popular practice, spring is not the time to fertilize your lawn. Fertilizing in the spring forces energy into the blades rather than the developing roots. This can lead to disease and insect problems later in the season. It will also require more frequent mowing. Fall is the best time to fertilize, when the roots that will sustain the plants through the following summer are actively growing. Slow-acting, organic fertilizer products are available which are kinder to your landscape and to the surrounding environment.
• Save up to 10 hours annually by mowing less often - Follow the “1/3rd rule” of mowing – Lawn experts recommend that you shouldn’t remove more than 1/3rd of the leaf blade when you mow. Removing too much of the foliage while mowing shocks the grass, forcing it to redirect its food resources from roots and stems towards new leaves. That means that if you want to mow to a 3” height, you shouldn’t mow until your grass is 4.5” high.
• Save up to 5 hours annually by learning to live with certain pests and weeds - . Practice Integrated Pest management – One of the first rules of eco-friendly gardening is, not all insects are bad. If you see insects in your lawn, take them to one of the local extension service offices for proper identification. Then, always select the least harmful form of insect control. Here is a list of IPM Specialists from the University of Maryland Extension.
• Save up to 15 hours annually by leaving your grass clippings on the lawn rather than bagging -  Mulch lawn clippings for a healthy lawn – When you mow your grass, leave the grass clippings where they lay. Grass clippings provide free, natural nutrients for your lawn, reducing the need for supplemental fertilizers or the labor intensive chore of bagging and removing lawn waste. Many mowers are outfitted with mulching attachments that chop clippings into fine pieces for quick breakdown. But if you follow the 1/3rd rule, you should never produce enough clippings to cause problems with your lawn.
• Save up to 15 hours annually by choosing a low maintenance grass variety - Get to know your grass – As with everything in your landscape, it’s best to get to know as much as you can about the species that you are dealing with so that you can make the right choices in taking care of it. Whether you already have an established lawn or are putting in a new one, get to know your grass. Here’s a great document from the Virginia Cooperative Extension about Selecting Turfgrass.

The Slacker's Guide to a Great Lawn: Consumer Reports

10 Tips for a Green, Eco-Friendly Lawn: Metro DC Lawn and Garden

Now is a good time to start your fertilizer diet

My poll question on the blog and our Facebook page this month is about fertilizer, specifically: What time of the year do you apply fertilizer to your lawn? After you take a few moment to add your answer to the poll, you can see what horticulture experts recommend by visiting our page, “10 Tips for a “Green”, Eco-Friendly Lawn”

Fertilizer is “in the news” in the area recently because of the Fertilizer Use Act of 2011 for Maryland, which limits the amount of nitrogen and phosphorus that may be contained in lawn fertilizer products and  also puts restrictions on how and when homeowners and lawn care professionals can apply these products.

Although the Maryland law will not officially go into effect until October 1, 2013, Maryland State Agriculture Secretary Buddy Vance is encouraging homeowners to start implementing these changes now.

"According to our state chemist here at the Maryland Department of Agriculture, about 44 percent of the fertilizer sold in the state of Maryland is applied to lawns - that's a pretty amazing factoid," Maryland Agriculture Secretary Buddy Hance said during a press conference Monday. "Everybody assumes that agriculture is the biggest user, but lawns use almost as much fertilizer."

One of the main changes from the Fertilizer Use Act will be the amount of nitrogen and phosphorous that is contained in fertilizer.

Nitrogen and phosphorus are key ingredients in lawn fertilizer, but can be harmful if used in excess. When it rains, these nutrients can wash into local waterways and eventually into the Chesapeake Bay where they can fuel the growth of algae blooms and threaten underwater life.

Jon Traunfeld, director of the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center, suggests that homeowners get their soil tested to determine the exact fertilizer needs of their lawn and also suggested that homeowners use compost to supply these needs.

For More Information: Maryland’s Lawn Fertilizer Law
And here is a link to a similar fertilizer law for Virginia : Virginia’s Fertilizer Law
And here’s the link again to our post: 10 Tips for a “Green”, eco-friendly Lawn

How eco-friendly fertilizer led to the first Thanksgiving

If you read my post from a few days ago, you probably remember Squanto. Squanto is the Indian that helped teach the Pilgrims how to be successful gardeners here in this New World. One of the things that Squanto taught the Pilgrims was to put a dead fish into every hole in which they were planting seeds. 

Fish as Fertilzer
As far as I know, this is the first recorded mention of what is now a common method in eco-friendly gardening: fish as fertilizer. Here is an excerpt from the book Squanto's Garden, which explains the benefits that the Pilgrim's gardens would have received from the fish:

The reason that the fish worked to help the corn grow goes far beyond simple fertilization. True enough that the plants could feed and grow from the decaying organic material, but the fish also addressed deeper problems with the soil because of the calcium it provided: 

The calcium provided by the flesh and bones of the fish acted to raise the Ph of the soil, neutralizing the acidic soil of the region and allowing the plant to better absorb nutrients.

Calcium also softens or mellows a soil, making it more porous by expanding the clay element of the soil. Calcium builds the strength of a plant at a cellular level, helping make it more resistant to draught and temperature changes. 

Calcium also acts to feed soil bacteria that are essential to plant growth. 

The fish fertilization also provided the soil with high levels of quality nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur that helped the plants to grow. Nitrogen contains protein that encourages the growth of the green part of the plant. Phosphorus stimulates root growth and promotes fruit and seeds as they mature. Potassium promotes plant vitality and resistance to disease. Sulfur contributes to important microbial life in the soil. Without adequate soil bacteria, minerals in the soil don’t get broken down into usable nutrients for the plant. Squanto’s fish fertilizer played a big role in increasing soil bacteria as well as improving the nutritional value of the plants grown with his methods.

Benefits of Organic Fertilizers
There are now many organic fertilizer products on the market that contain fish, in some form. Fish emulsion, fish meal, hydrolyzed fish and fish powder all let you add natural, organic fertilizer to your plants without harming the planet. Since one of the biggest problems with chemical fertilizers is that they can wash into our waterways and pollute the water, it makes sense that fertilizer made out of fish parts would not create the same problem.

Squanto's Garden is a free e-book and you might enjoy reading the whole thing. In the meantime, here are some more eco-tips from Squanto's Garden.

There are many other techniques you can use to help your garden grow. Rather than using chemical pesticides, you can use nature to control the insect population in your garden. Just a single bird will eat hundreds of thousands of insects in a single year. You can bring birds to your garden by bearing in mind that they have four basic needs: food, water, shelter and a place to raise their young. By providing one or all of these needs in your garden, you can attract birds that will effectively control your insect population without any chemicals at all. 

The use of composting is an excellent way to encourage and promote earthworms in your soil. Earthworms mix up the soil and stimulate microbial activity. They also introduce valuable aeration to the soil as they tunnel. Always be careful not to apply chemical fertilizers (any of the common white powders) to your garden. These products kill or drive away earthworms as well as other microbes vital for a fertile, living garden. Composting will also add beneficial soil organisms that will protect the plant from predatory life forms. 

If your companion planting does not provide the level of ground cover that squash does, you may want to consider laying down mulch. Mulch helps to maintain a good level of moisture in the soil.

Information about Organic Fertlizers

Fertilize with care

The first thing many people do when a plant looks stressed or doesn't seem to be growing quickly enough is head for the fertilizer. This might not only harm the plant, but unnecessary fertilizers (and other chemicals) are sure to harm the planet.

Excess chemical fertilizers are washed into our waterways, releasing nutrients that can cause algae blooms that rob the water of dissolved oxygen and can lead to fish kills. Excess chemicals in fertilizer may also find its way into local drinking water supplies.

Whenever possible choose plants that require little or no fertilizer. Native plants are usually a good choice for this. Having your soil tested will also help you determine what nutrients are lacking.

Amend the soil by adding homemade compost and other nutrients. Healthy soil will provide plants enough nutrients without the use of additional fertilizers.

If it is determined that a plant needs fertilizer, choose an organic fertilizer or one that contains nitrogen in a slow-release insoluble form. Nitrogen is one of the chemicals in fertilizer that has the most potential for harming the environment. The other chemical of concern is phosphorus. Always follow manufacturer’s directions when using fertilizer.

If using a purchased fertilizer, choose one that contains at least 30 percent slow-release nitrogen. Also, check the three numbers on the front of the bag to select the right mixture for the type of plant you are fertilizing. The numbers represent the fertilizer's nitrogen (first number), phosphorus (second number) and potassium (third number) contents. Using high nitrogen fertilizer on a plant that does not need it is a waste of money and will eventually be washed away by storm water if not used by the plant.

During the 2009 legislative session, the Maryland General Assembly passed the Chesapeake Bay Phosphorus Reduction Act prohibiting the sale of lawn fertilizer that is not low-phosphorous fertilizer. On or after April 1, 2011, lawn fertilizer sold in Maryland must contain not more than 5 percent of available phosphoric acid. 

Fertilizers with higher concentrations of phosphorus will be allowed only in special situations and for new lawns and turf. Newly planted areas require more phosphorus to promote root growth, while established plants and turf need very little phosphorus. 

The legislation helps protect the Chesapeake Bay from high concentrations of phosphorus that can lead to algae blooms and oxygen depletion. County residents can do their part now by seeking out low phosphorus fertilizers for lawn treatment. It is also a good practice to conduct soil tests before applying fertilizers so that treatments are tailored for local soil conditions. Source

If a plant is looking pale or showing other symptoms of ill health, take a piece of the plant to your local Extension Service office or trusted garden center for help with diagnosis of the problem.

Fertilize during the dry months, when possible, and use the least amount of fertilizer necessary. Do not apply fertilizer within 50 feet of a water body and never fertilize when rain is predicted.

For more information, see: Fertilizing the Vegetable Garden

Six "Green" Things I’ve Learned to Do Around my Property so that My Husband Can Keep on Fishing

I mentioned the other day that my husband is the one that really got me started on learning more about environmentally friendly gardening.

I have always loved nature and gardens and wildlife. I grew up in a small town in New Jersey where I inherited my love of gardening from my parents, who always had beautiful elaborate flowerbeds filled with multi-colored, sweet scented blooms. As soon as I was old enough to start living on my own, every home I lived in, whether rented or owned, soon became filled with my own beautiful gardens.

But taking my parent’s lead, I thought that beautiful gardens meant lots of chemical fertilizers and foul smelling pesticides. I was happy with the occasional bird or butterfly passing through and I blamed the lack of more of those gardener visitors on all the new construction going on around me.

Then I met my husband. He was the rugged, outdoor type and when he started trying to tell me everything I was doing wrong in the garden I thought “Yeah, right. What does a construction worker/outdoorsman know about gardening?”

And then I went to his home and saw his gorgeous organic vegetable garden, full of huge ripe vegetables and I watched him hand-picking insects off of them instead of spraying chemicals and when I asked him why he gardened that way, he told me it was because he likes to fish.

Like most gardeners, I have learned my gardening habits from many other gardeners. I’ve learned from my childhood gardens in New Jersey, my inlaw’s gardens in Michigan, and my grandmother’s farm in Oklahoma. But when I met my husband, I soon learned that many of the things I was doing in my landscape were not only harming the birds and butterflies that I loved so much, but the environment in general, and that meant it was having an impact on people that like to fish.

He taught me how everything, from washing my car, mowing my lawn, and walking his dog, could affect his fishing hobby. I should add here that when my husband first taught me many of these things, I thought that he was just trying to save time and money so he’d have more of both to devote to fishing. But I’m from Missouri (the Show Me State) so I did plenty of research that helped to prove that sometimes it really DOES benefit the environment to do a little less around the yard instead of more.

So in an effort to keep the good ol’ boy that I married happy, here is a list of the “Six Things I’ve Learned to Do Around my Property so that My Husband Can Keep on Fishing.”

1. Watch what goes in the groundwater - Everything that goes into the ground around a home has the potential of finding its way into local fishing spots. This is the most important lesson of all. All of the chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides that are used in landscapes can get picked up by rain and misdirected sprinkler heads and get washed out into the stormwater lines where they can find their way to rivers, lakes, wetlands, coastal waters and even underground sources of drinking water. This type of pollution is called nonpoint source pollution and is one of the major contributors to degradation of the Metro area’s waterways. Many fish species are affected by nonpoint source pollution. The affects of chemicals in the waterways are so far-reaching that in a study performed in the Potomac River, 79% of the male bass which were studied were either producing eggs or showing other “intersex” characteristics. The solutions to preventing stormwater pollution are simple. First, don’t put dangerous chemicals into the ground (see #2 and #3 below). And take steps to make sure that water remains in your landscape rather than washing into storm drains. Always remove any debris or chemicals from driveways, roads and hard surfaces. Don't let them wash into waterways.

2) Switch to natural fertilizers - Chemical fertilizers in local waterways can cause algae blooms that kill fish. You can meet a plant’s nutritional needs in ways that are not as harmful to the environment by using compost or allowing grass clippings to remain on the lawn. My hubby only let’s me use natural fertilizers such as fish emulsion and liquid seaweed – both good choices for fisherman and for the environment - and, of course, compost.

3) Don’t Let the Pests Pester You – Pesticides and herbicides are two more substance that are almost always found in unhealthy fish. If you keep a healthy yard, bugs and weeds are less of a problem. Healthy plants are less vulnerable to bugs and predators such as bigger bugs, toads and birds usually take care of the ones that sneak in. Anything that you decide to spray to kill insects, again, has the potential of making its way into the groundwater so if you do decide to use chemicals, ask your retailer for the least toxic solution for a particular bug and ONLY spray the bug or infected plant. Broad spraying of an entire garden or yard is rarely needed or effective. Broad applications of products such as weed and feed are also harmful. Many pest problems can be treated in ways that don’t harm the environment. You can handpick bugs or prune off infested parts of plants. Weeds can be handpicked, blocked with mulch or treated with corn gluten meal (CGM) a natural weed control.

4) Don’t waste water – Fish depend on the rise and fall of ground water levels for survival, so wasting water at home reduces water in fish habitat and increases the concentrations of minerals and contaminants in the remaining water. The results are crowding, disease and eventually fish die-offs. Wasting water can disrupt the natural cycles in wetlands, ponds and lakes.The biggest waste of water in the Washington DC metro area (and most states) is landscape irrigation. Planting drought tolerant plants, using rain barrels, mulching and properly managing your irrigation system can save thousands of gallons of water annually.

5) Quit fighting mother nature – Many of the problems caused by non-point source pollution and excess watering can be solved by creating a more natural landscape. A landscape plan that follows the natural contours and soil conditions of the site and utilizes native plants which are well-suited to the site conditions will require less fertilizing, less pesticides and less watering. The ideal plant for any location will have needs that match what your site already provides. Native plants are often excellent choices because they require less maintenance (which allows more time for fishing). Correct plant selection and placement can help filter pollutants out of groundwater and reduce heating and cooling costs by providing shade and wind barriers.

6) Don’t coddle your lawn - A healthy lawn helps protect local waterways by acting as a filter to trap sediment and pollutants. Fortunately, keeping your lawn healthy usually means less work, not more. Over watering, over-mowing and over-fertilization weaken a lawn by not forcing it to develop a strong, healthy root system. This harms the lawn AND the environment. As with other plants, it is important to choose a species cultivated for the region, such as the red and tall Fescues. Proper lawn mowing also keeps the lawn healthy. Keep mower blades sharpened to avoid damaging the grass blades and never remove more than one third of the grass blade when you mow. Tall grass shades and cools the soil, discourages weeds and shelters beneficial ants and ground spiders that prey on pest insect eggs in the turf.

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Since I’ve learned these things, I’ve devoted a good part of my life trying to teach them to other people. Some folks think I do it all to attract more wildlife and to help grow delicious chemical free produce. But mainly I think that if I convince enough people, maybe my husband won’t think that he has to go out every weekend to check on the fishing!

For additional information about these principles, visit: Landscaping and Gardening, Fairfax County, Virginia From Creeks to the Chesapeake, Protecting our Watershed (pdf file) (City of Rockville) Conservation Landscaping (City of Rockville) Water Quality Stewardship Guide, Fairfax County, Virginia.