Greening the Lawn

    So now that Spring is more or less here, it seems to be the time to make your lawn look gorgeous again.  Right?

    We know that there are bugs, weeds and things.  But what makes a lawn look great? Green!

    When we think of "greening" up the lawn we tend to think of fertilizer.  But what is the magic in fertilizer that makes the lawn green?  It's all in the numbers.

    On any bag of fertilizer you will see three numbers located somewhere on the bag.  Go ahead, look.  It's not like we're asking you to find Waldo.  They're usually located in a bottom corner of the bag right next to a listing of all the chemicals that are in the bag, words that have more syllables than a country song.

    What you need to know is that the first number refers to the percentage of the fertilizer that is comprised of Nitrogen.  The second is Phosphate and the third number is Potash.  So, on the bag to the right, there are equal percentages of each of these components, each at 10% of the total list of ingredients in the bag.

    The one that greens up your lawn is the Nitrogen, so if your primarily interested in getting that lush green color in your lawn, choose a fertilizer that is heavier in Nitrogen than the other two key elements.

    That's easy enough, but here's where some folks go wrong.  We most often buy fertilizer in a granular form, and after spreading it on the lawn, it just makes sense to water the product into the lawn.  Right?  Well... sort of.

    When Nitrogen granules are watered into a lawn (or any other surface) they turn to liquid rapidly.  If you water the lawn too much after applying a Nitrogen-heavy fertilizer, the Nitrogen will sink into the water table and drain away, leaving you scratching your head and wondering why your lawn turned yellow instead of green.

    Don't over-water.

  Call me a throw back, but I liked the music of The Carpenters.  Do you know what else I like?  The sound of carpenter ants dying in agony, suffering in their dying breath.

   There are plenty of chemicals out there that will do a good job getting rid of those pesky beasts... the carpenter ants, not THE Carpenters.  But if you would like to take a more organic approach, you might want to try the following recipe.

    Take some sugar, some powdered borax and a banana.  "What?" you say.  "I ain't fallin' for no banana in the tail pipe!"  Calm down.  Take those three ingredients and mush them together to make a paste then sprinkle it around the foundation of your house.

    Not only will it prevent carpenter ants from getting into your house, they'll be attracted to the sugar element and take it (along with borax) back to their nest to have a big party with their pals.  Sugar...good, borax...ba............................