Round-Up Before Tilling?
JawjaPeach
12 years ago
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tnjdm
12 years agolast modified: 8 years agoRelated Discussions
Adding manure before tilling
Comments (27)Considering that I've had horses since I was about 5 years old and poultry of all sorts, I've probably eaten more manure incidentally than most people. I have had a few animals through the years with diarrheal illnesses but since they were my own I simply used manure at those times on trees instead of gardens. 45 years, I've had one foal with e.coli. I had a couple of pot belly pigs and a dog with a clostridium perfringens infection ( not botulism), and a few calves,that I bought as a day-old from a huge dairy farm that had salmonella and e.coli. I believe the foal with e.coli caught it from the calves. The calves were pretty sick and the scarey thing is that the infections were resistant to all known antibiotic classes, both the e.coli and the salmonella. I was very careful handling the calves and manure. With those antibiotic resistances, I have to wonder what our dairy supplies are like. Not to mention feed lot cattle and big-ag poultry. Remember, this is over 45 years and countless numbers of animals of all sorts! I was raising horses and cattle for a long time, still breed a few horses. I had up to thirty cattle in my herd and we raised dogs for show/field trials. I also ran a kennel for several years. I think small operations with manure, especially organic and free range, are relatively low risk. Probably far less risk than eating vegetables from the grocery store! Still, pregnant women and those with decreased imunnofunction should be more cautios, obviously. I do compost my manures but there are usually areas less composted or aged than others. When we move, I plan to do a three bin system to avoid this issue. I have no way to do this right now....See MoreTilling before sodding
Comments (6)If it was ever driven over, used as a play area, etc. it's compacted. If it's a weedy, meadowy sort of place that never saw that kind of treatment, it's probably somewhat compacted but not severely. If earth movers were used to put the soil there, it's compacted. In any case, I'd aerate. Those new roots really want to dig in, and that's easier if the soil is loose. Tight, compact soils disallow root penetration and can ultimately result in a lawn that isn't a summer tolerant (or winter tolerant, depending on which season is the more severe for you) as it could have been....See MoreDo I need to till before planting new plants?
Comments (7)Everything you want to plant should do fine on a dig + plant + native soil fill...technically you've already loosened the soil up digging the other plants out. If you choose to amend your fill...do so with mostly native soil to prevent the root from balling up in too-rich/amended soil. Also, your azalea will want acidic soil...you may or may not want to lower your soil pH with amendments. Unless your Zone 9 is in an area prone to caliche deposits (desert areas) you most likely don't need additional tilling...and even then only to break up deposits...and even then you'll probably need something stronger than a tiller unless it's a shallow/thin deposit. This post was edited by nc-crn on Fri, Apr 12, 13 at 15:18...See MoreTilling soil before planting
Comments (19)High magnesium can give otherwise normal soil the sense of being clayey. That's about the extent of my soil chemistry knowledge so I like to slip that in when I can '- ) Up there where morph said your soil test didn't make sense...that's why we suggest going to Logan Labs. Their $25 test is so comprehensive that those with morph's background can make sense out of it. I suspect your soil is hard and turns mucky when wet. Those are two different issues but make people believe they have a clay based soil. Hard soil can be fixed with shampoo applied at a rate of 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet. Follow up with deep watering. Repeat in 2 weeks if the soil does not soften when moist. You can repeat as often as you like with no problems. Morph did not get into how he makes his lawn(s) look like that. Here's the basics: Redo the entire lawn with an Elite Kentucky bluegrass mix. Once the grass is established, water deeply and infrequently. Mow KBG at or near the highest setting (he uses a mowing robot). Fertilize with organics all season long and make the last app a high N, fast release synthetic fert. Once a year get a Logan Labs soil test and rebalance the micronutrients as indicated. Note that there is nothing special about what he does. There are no secret formulas, expensive products, magic methods, or any of that. There is no routine use of herbicides, insecticides, or fungicides. He'll tell you that #5 is very important. In my opinion the soil test is much more important if have tried everything and nothing seems to work. But if you want the nicest lawn on the block, then it becomes important. The last picture belongs to a friend of mine in SoCal (Huntington Beach). He's not a grass guru by any means. He does what I tell him and nothing else. I told him about mowing high, deep/infrequent watering, and organics. All of a sudden his mediocre lawn became what you see. It's Kentucky bluegrass. He can get away with KBG in SoCal because he's just a few miles from the beach. He fertilizes with used coffee grounds once in the spring. Coffee grounds and corn meal are the two worst organic fertilizers there are next to compost. The protein value is rock bottom, but they do have some value. Here is another picture of his house from Google Earth. His lawn is the nicest on his block, and he doesn't know what he's doing. You'd have to look pretty hard to find a nicer one. It really is as simple as what morph does and what we've been preaching for years....See Moretexas_weed
12 years agolast modified: 8 years agotnjdm
12 years agolast modified: 8 years agoJawjaPeach
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12 years agolast modified: 8 years agoJawjaPeach
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dchall_san_antonio
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12 years agolast modified: 8 years agoJawjaPeach
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top3cret
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