Category Archives: education

Now an Official Volunteer

education

Today I drove over to the Kent County Extensions Office to pick up the corrected final exam for the MSU Master Gardener Volunteer Program. The exam was open-book which I completed over the holidays. It emphasized the need for volunteers to be able to find information they need from reference materials. Even so, the exam was tricky because the questions offered more than one correct answer. We needed to select the “best” correct answer. I successfully did so often enough that I passed the exam. Hoorah!

The classroom hours and course work we completed fulfills the education hours for the 2013 certification. I’ve sunk 10 hours into the Grand Ideas Garden, a garden at the Extensions Office enjoyed by the public and utilized for continued learning for gardeners. Now I have 30 volunteer hours to give to various gardening projects around our little city. I’m looking forward to it.

Turf is Fascinating… For Reals

education, pest control

Things I thought I would never say during my life: “It was quite interesting to read fifty-three pages of course material about turf and then attend a class solely focused on the subject.”

I have spent the past two weeks making it clear if I fell asleep in any of my Master Gardener classes, it would be during the class about turf. A lawn to me is prime perennial real estate going to waste. The Lot is quite tiny, a fact I struggle with each time I want to bring a new plant home with me. We don’t have kids; we don’t play golf. The four-footed garden help prefer to imagine themselves as wild jungle cats while stalking among the shrubs and other various plants. Why would we want to waste space with grass?

However, even though it did not persuade me to yank my perennials in favor of a well-manicured lawn, the inner workings of the grass plants and the responsible ways to maintain one were pretty cool to learn about. Here are just a few things I learned.

Don’t Scalp Your Lawn

One of the keys to a great-looking turf is to keep the height of the mower set between 3-4″ high. That’s right…a short lawn can starve, get sick, loose to weeds, and generally stress out. A taller height allows grass plants to photosynthesize more carbs to build stronger root systems. It also creates a plant canopy to shade out the weeds that are trying to germinate. Short blade height also allows the hot sun to burn the grass plant’s crown. Ouch. The instructor had a great suggestion on how to embrace this new approach to mowing height.

Set your mower to the highest height, take it to a local auto shop, and have them weld the mower deck into place.

Buyer Beware

I’ve noticed throughout the Master Gardener classes that the fertilizer and pesticide companies LOVE an un-educated and/or lazy homeowner. There are a lot of resources available to a homeowner for common lawn problems like lack of nutrients in the soil or controlling pests like grubs. For example, when Spring finally arrives in MI, the box stores have huge end-caps advertising grub control products for the lawn. Spring is a horrible time to apply an insecticide to control grubs. The insect is not in the right stage of it’s life-cycle to be sufficiently curbed by pesticides.

Before randomly throwing money at a box store (they will take your $$$ without argument) and spraying the lawn with chemicals, check out a site like MSU Turfgrass Science and get informed. There are some handy lawn care product reviews on the site as well.

Can’t Make Chicken Soup Outta Chicken Sh*t

I know neither chickens nor soup have anything to do with turf here, but I am going somewhere with this. The quality of soil in the yard is the foundation of all things green and beautiful for a homeowner. If the soil is poor, more than likely the lawn will struggle. Before blaming a pest or disease, make sure your soil has what it takes to support the grass. A nutrient deficiency is just a likely to make a lawn look terrible. Most state extensions offices offer a soil test for residents to figure out what exactly is going on with your soil. The MSU Extensions Office provides the service to Michigan dwellers here.

Screw the Joneses

Your lawn does not need to be a golf course. Period. I have friends who live in a wealthier subdivision and they have fully embraced this concept. My chest swells a bit with pride each time I pull up to their home during the summer and observer their naturally dormant lawn. I can’t imagine how much their neighbors must spend in blood-pressure control meds.

It is completely up to the homeowner to what level they maintain the lawn. If you want to imagine yourself on a putting green while walking across the yard, you can do so. Just be smart about the resources expended to accomplish this… Inform Yo-Self. If you do not want to spend the money and resources and rather just make sure the grass plants survive a season (they’ll bounce back in the Fall anyway, right?), that is okay also.

Nip! Nom, Nom, Nom.

backyard bed, education, spring

CatnipOur two garden helpers and I spent an hour outside today in the cool weather and bright sunshine. I passed time turning compost and the dead leaves in the raised beds. The other two spent time chewing on and rolling upon the new growth on the catnip.

I also spent some time surveying the backyard of The Lot for an upcoming landscaping class. The four week course, one evening a week, is being hosted at a local church and conducted by a Master Gardener. Since our main view of the garden from inside the house is through the kitchen window, that is the area I will be focusing on for the classes.

Homework after the first class consists of filling out a profile-type sheet on the garden. How much and what type sunlight does it receive? What is the texture and aeration of the soil? How is it supplied with water? What is the drainage? What is the root competition with neighboring trees and/or shrubs? What natural elements is it exposed to? What type of budget, financial and time, do we want to spend on the garden? And most importantly, why do we even want the garden in the first place? What is it’s purpose? These all seem to be fantastic questions that help to make plant selection and planning a bit less overwhelming.

Lady’s MantleAfter filling out the garden profile, I took the camera around The Lot and snapped more photos of the beds. Perhaps it’s because I can be a bit of a softie, but I get all warm and fuzzy inside when I brush back dead leaves and stalks to find brand new plant growth. Though I love Fall in general, Spring in the garden is always amazing.