I was just wondering about putting fertilizer down on our lawn. It is so patchy and dry in some areas. I have had to adjust our drip system since we have a tractor that gets moved around.
hand watering just isn't cutting it. I would like to fertilize the lawn with granules and soak it but am concerned about the hens eating it, etc. I thought between chicken poop and water, we would have a lush lawn this summer. Not so much. Any ideas are welcome.
Personally I would think it's too hot to put any kind of fertilizer on anything right now. Personally I use no chemicals at all anywhere on my place. IF I was somewhere that I could grow grass I would just use composted manure, about half an inch thick in the fall, with some winter rye (NOT rye grass!) and after it was up and going pretty good let the birds and bunnies graze it. Add some more compost every couple months during the winter and spring when the weather is above freezing and things are growing reasonably well.
If you do opt for synthetic fertilizer be sure it's not one of those ' weed & feed " products that contain pesticides; those might very well kill your birds along with many other things.
I'm with Mary on this one. I've completely stopped using chemicals at my house and it's worked wonderfully. We still have some bare spots and about two feet around three of the four edges hasn't grown in yet, but in about nine months of having chickens, our lawn has gotten significantly more lush. The bare spots have been filling in nicely, but it does take time. After seeing what the chicken poop does, I will never use commercial stuff again. Most of my lawn is extremely lush, green and soft.
I can tell you that "adding" manure has drastically helped also. It was not planned at all, but when I was mixing it into the garden beds, I got a little sloppy and dumped manure along the edges of the raised beds. Those spots have grown the absolute best of anything in my backyard. It wasn't even properly composted manure, either. I went to a lady's house on Craig's List and I mucked out two of her horse stalls for her. I mixed that in to the flower beds in about a one-to-one ratio with the dirt. But like I said, the stall muck spilled and has given me phenomenal grass there. I would have absolutely no qualms about spreading all of that around the yard like Mary mentioned.
Based on what I've seen so far, allow at least one full summer for the patchy spots to come in. Spread a thin layer of the manure over those spots and let it work it's magic. The other thing I've changed so far is that I am doing more of a flood irrigation, rather than a sprinkler irrigation. I leave my sprinkler's on for about 8 hours every other week. The yard gets nice and flooded, spending the next two days soaking in really well. Otherwise, I found that it only properly watered the top inch or two if I was lucky. By the end of the week, the dirt on the top was dry and cracking, just like you see in the movies. Now, it doesn't do that.
One last note on the watering... About once a month, when the chemicals are low or completely gone from my pool, I will back wash the filter in to the yard. I added some salt to the pool this year to make it more of a soft water, too. I've used that to flood irrigate the yard, rather than dumping it down the sewer system or into the streets. I believe both of those methods are illegal in most cities, so I'm not entirely sure what they expect you to do. Regardless, it hasn't damaged the yard at all. In general, my pool has a lower chlorine concentration that most cities' tap water anyway.
I don't know if any of that will help, but that's my experience so far this year.
what can I say, we hall have that child, niece or nephew that is just can't help themselves, they just love that bad boy or girl that will only lead them astray. That hot blooded latin lovers with that come heather look, and sweet talk. You may have to lay the law down. Or just except that she is in love with with the boy next door.
