applied too much fertilizer - oh no!!

16 years ago

I thought I had the spreader set on the slowest setting but it was on the highest (or most open) setting. So I was putting down the Scotts Organic Fertilizer today, Sat. Oct. 13. I realized what I had done when I didn't finish the lawn and was out of fertilizer. I immediately put on the hoses and gave the lawn a good soak. From what I read, I should keep watering deeply, but for how long?? This is slow release fertilizer with the bone and blood meal. (I was hoping it might help with the squirrels that have been digging in my lawn, ha ha.) I am so mad at myself.

Any advice appreciated?

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Comments (8)

jongoldman
16 years ago
If its organic you should be OK as its not supposed to burn.
bpgreen
16 years ago
"If its organic you should be OK as its not supposed to burn."

That's not necessarily true. It depends on what is in the fertilizer. Some organic nitrogen sources are very fast release and high N and will burn. A couple of examples are uncomposted poultry manure and blood meal.

Do you have any details on the product you used? I found a number of Organic choice products, but didn't find any aimed at lawn use. What is in the fertilizer? Does it say if it's fast release or slow release?
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Before I reply to your post, I'll reply to some of David's comments. "There is only one organic fertilizer that will burn that I am aware of. That is blood meal applied too heavily." Uncomposted poultry manure can also burn. I had access to uncomposted poultry manure many years ago and saw it burn when it was over applied. "No matter what you can't trust the settings on a spreader to apply the correct amount of anything organic. Some settings are close, but with organic, no settings are even close. You will have to calibrate your fertilizer to your spreader. Not to chastise you but if you know how much land you have to cover and how much the bag covers, most people will realize when they finish one bag and have only covered 1/4 of the expected area, that something is wrong." If I read the original post correctly, he had covered 1/4 of the area with 1/2 of the fertilizer. He realized something was wrong and posted here before making it worse. IMHO, it doesn't matter whether you use chemical or organic fertilizers. Either way, you shouldn't use the spreader settings to determine the application. There are too many variables. I always calculate how much fertilizer (or seed) I need and adjust the spreader settings based on how much lawn I'm covering versus how much I should be covering. I also try to make multiple passes at half the rate so that if I misjudge, every spot gets some, but some spots get more. I'm assuming this is the fertilizer you applied. I'm also assuming that you didn't really apply 2.5 tons of it on your lawn. The biggest bag they carry is a 50 lb bag, so I'm going to assume that's the one you used. I could be wrong, but I think that since they have 7% water soluble nitrogen, even 50 lbs could cause burning in your situation. You said the front lawn is slightly smaller than the back, and you have 10k sq ft total and you ran out after fertilizing half the front lawn. Since you say "a bit" smaller, I'll assume the front is 5000 sq ft, so you applied the bag to 2500 sq ft. If the bag was a 50 lb bag, you applied about 1.4 lbs of water soluble N per 1k sq ft. That's high, and may cause burning, but it may not be high enough to burn. If the front lawn is significantly less than 5k sq ft, you will be more likely to have burning. If you didn't mistype in the original post, and you really applied 5,000 lbs of this fertilizer to 2500 sq ft, I don't think anything will grow there for at least a year.
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jemboysch
Original Author
16 years ago
The brand was Scott's organic lawn food. Analysis 11-2-2. Blood meal is one of the components as well as some sort of hydrolized feather meal, bone meal and others - I don't quite remember.
The label didn't say slow or quick release. I just assumed is was slow since it is organic.
bpgreen
16 years ago
The feather meal is very slow release, but the blood meal is very fast release.

You may still be ok, depending on how much of the fertilizer is blood meal and how much is feather meal. The amount you applied and the size of the lawn will also play a part.

How large is the lawn and how much fertilizer did you apply?
jemboysch
Original Author
16 years ago
Ok, I'm not sure about the size of the space. Maybe 2/3 of my front lawn which is on a little more than 1/4 of an acre total. And I used about 1/2 the bag, which is around 9 lbs. The bag said it covered 2,500 SF, so what I used was meant to cover 1,250 SF. I don't know if that tells you what you need to know.
I had the spreader set to 15, which I thought was letting the least amount out. I didn't want to put too much down at this time of the year. The bag recommended the setting be on 10-1/2.
I'm on my way out to start watering again. Do you think this is helping? And how long should I continue?
Thanks for your responses.
bpgreen
16 years ago
If I understand you correctly, you don't have anything to worry about.

You used 9 lbs of 10-10-10 fertilizer and spread it on about 7260 sq ft, right? .25 acres is 10890 sq ft and you covered 2/3 of that, which would be 7260 sq ft. So you spread about .9 lb of actual N over 7260 sq ft. It would only be a problem if you spread it over less than 900 sq ft.
eastpenna
16 years ago
I do not think you need to worry. The Scotts Organic Choice fertilizer is a 11-2-2 and 10 of the 11 comes from feather meal, which is slow release.
paulinct
16 years ago
I don't think you need to worry either, but I think it is a little tighter: you say you covered 2/3 of your front lawn - roughly how much of your lawn is "front" versus the back and sides, and do you have an idea of how much of your total lot your house and garage and driveway/patio/porch/whatever other non-grass areas in the front cover?

applied too much fertilizer - oh no!!

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jongoldman

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applied too much fertilizer - oh no!!

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jongoldman

bpgreen

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