It’s Fall Y’all

It’s Fall Y’all

Fall is the ideal season for many things; apple picking, pumpkin carving and decorating for Halloween. It is also the best time to seed or over-seed a lawn. Other lawn care practices are essential for lawns to be able to withstand the winter period of dormancy and frost. By taking the time to care for your lawn this fall, you’ll help it to grow greener and healthier next spring!

Keep Watering & Mowing

Continue to water and mow your lawn, as needed, throughout the fall. Keep the mower at its normal setting to mulch leaves into the lawn. Or bag them to use as mulch in beds or planters. Once that’s done, for the last cut of the season lower the mower deck one notch. This will limit the amount of a ‘blade lay-over’ under the snow.

Hydretain OC

NEW at Essex Co-Op, Hydretain Granular OC, puts the power of Hydretain liquid on an Organic Compost carrier for easy application. Incorporate at the time of seeding or planting to maximize water usage. Whether you’re dealing with drought, water restrictions, high water costs, dry spots or daily wilt cycles, Hydretain helps you maintain healthy turf and plants with HALF as much water. Each 15 lb bag treats up to 1500 sq. ft. of gardens or 3,000 sq. ft. of lawns.

Aeration

Fall is also an ideal time to aerate your lawn so that oxygen, water, and fertilizer can easily reach the grass’s roots. You can rent a gas-powered, walk-behind lawn aerator for about $70-$100 per day. The self-propelled machine will quickly punch holes into the soil and extract plugs of dirt topped with a chunk of grass. If you’ve got a very large yard - say, more than 1 or 2 acres - it may make sense to hire a landscape contractor.

Lime, gypsum, fertilizer and/or over seeding can be applied after aeration.

Lime raises the pH of the soil making it less acidic. Weeds like an acidic soil, grass prefers a sweet soil. We carry both traditional brown, pelletized lime and faster acting Calcitic pelletized limes: Cal-Turf Pro Fast Acting Pelletized Lime and Jonathan Green Mag-I-Cal.

Essex Co-Op offers home owners 1 FREE pH soil test per year. Simply bring us a bag of soil from your lawn in a plastic bag or bucket. We’ll test it and then help you calculate the proper amount of Lime to apply to balance your lawn’s pH.

Gypsum has many benefits for your soil; it reduced salts, improves soil structure, loosens soil compaction and adds essential nutrients. Essex Co-Op carries Gypsum in 40 pound bags.

Dethatching

Fall is also a great time to detach lawns. Thatch is the mat-like layer of organic material that rests between grass blades, fixed roots, and the soil. While a bit of thatch can be beneficial, too much can cause your lawn to lose its color and turn the ground spongy.

You can dethatch your lawn by hand, with tools, or power tools such as a dethatcher that you can rent. Add the resulting thatch debris to your compost pile or use it as mulch around trees and shrubs.

Dethatching your lawn can have many benefits including: Improved drainage, better water penetration, quicker nutrient uptake and improved root growth.

Remove Leaves

Fallen leaves on the lawn block sunlight from reaching it, particularly at a time of year when it needs as much sun as possible to power through until dormancy.

Rake, Mulch or Bag with your mower to keep the lawn free of leaves.

Fertilize

Most lawn experts agree: If you only fertilize your lawn once a year, do it in the fall. The reason? Grass leaves grow much more slowly as the weather turns cool, but the grass roots and rhizomes continue to grow quickly. A fall application of fertilizer delivers essential nutrients for the grass to grow deep roots now and to keep nutrients on reserve for a healthy start next spring. October thru mid-November is the optimal time to apply this feeding. For this application we would recommend; Scotts Step 4 or Scotts Winter Guard or Green View Fall Food.

Fill in the Bald Spots

The quickest, easiest way to fill in the bald spots in your lawn is with all-in-one Scotts EZ Seed. This ready-to-use mixture contains grass seed, a special quick-starter lawn fertilizer, and organic mulch. This mix is packaged in; 3.75 lb jugs, and 10 & 20 lb. bags. We also have Essex #2 Sun & Shade Mix along with Essex Shade Mixture. and Essex Velvet Green Mixture (Sunny). All available in 3, 7, 25 and 50 lb bags. Another very popular seed at the Co-Op is Jonathon Green Black Beauty available in 5, 25 and 50 lb bags.

Use a garden rake to scratch and loosen the soil on the bald spot you are repairing. Then spread a thick layer of a seed mix that matches the environment of the area. Apply a starter fertilizer. Essex Co-Op carries Scotts and GreenView starter fertilizers that cover between 5 and 15 thousand square feet. Lightly compact the seed mixture, fertilizer then water thoroughly, and continue to water every other day for two weeks.

Potting soil from your flower or vegetable pots and garden beds can also be used to patch or topdress your lawn. To topdress use a shovel to spread small piles of potting soil on selected areas of your lawn, add some grass seed, and then lightly spread the piles with a garden rake, or even a push broom. The potting soil will sink into the existing lawn and the nutrients from the potting soil will help improve grass growth and turn the area a deeper green. Check out the many YouTube videos that demonstrate how to topdress lawns or drop by the Co-Op with any questions.

Apply Herbicide

If broadleaf weeds like dandelions or clover have taken over your lawn, now’s the time to fight back. Weeds, like most plants, are in the energy-absorbing mode during the fall. They’re drinking in everything that comes their way, including weed killers. Read the package label before use, then apply an herbicide and to prevent weeds from returning in the spring. Just keep in mind that herbicides and grass seed don’t go together. If you’ve repaired one area of the lawn, the herbicide can kill the new grass seedlings. Or it can prevent new seed from germinating. Use Scotts WinterGuard Weed & Feed if the broadleaf weeds are throughout the lawn. Essex Co-Op also has liquid herbicides formulated by Bayer, Bonide, Garden Tech, Monterey, and Ortho available in concentrate, hose end sprayers, trigger sprayers and aerosol formulations for spot weed control. If you prefer an organic weed control we carry Captain Jack's Dead Weed Brew and Safer brands.