We have been having problems with our lawn for about 6 months. It all started when the dog started to dig us a new Olympic size swimming pool. While I appreciated her efforts (as I would love a pool) I discouraged her from continuing as I knew this would be another of those doggie projects that she will start and never finish (She doesn’t have a great attention span.) Ever since I filled in the pool and with it, included some of her pooh to discourage her from digging in the same spot (which worked very well – no holes since!) we have started getting patches of dead grass all over the place! Small patches, big patches, patches that climb on rocks! Being a newbie to gardening, I just kept piling on the dynamic lifter, blood and bone and lawn ‘repair kits’ from Bunnings. The only thing that changed was the arrival of some strange, stringy grass species in the pool area…

(The pictures above are two sections of my lawn, only about 50cm apart)

So, after speaking to a few people at Flower Power (our local gardening shop) we seem to have Lawn Grub. Of course all the shops we talk to about treating lawn grub sell only toxic chemicals to treat the grub! These chemicals recommend you wear gloves and a mask to administer them and that children and pets should not come into contact with the lawn during treatment!

Ergh, I thought I was just going to have to let Baci keep digging the pool as there is no way we were going to treat our lawn with chemicals, I’d prefer it was gone. But alas, there are solutions! Lots of solutions! Why do these shops only sell the chemicals? I’d hate to know how many people have purchased these chemicals and applied them to their lawn and not kept their children or pets off it. And, even if they did keep them off, they will never know when (and if) it is safe to go back on the lawn! Why are people so quick to use toxic products as a quick fix?

It really concerns me.

In the meantime, I think I have decided to use Organic Plus on the lawn. Here are some quotes about it from Hortons Turf;

I’ve never seen a lawn killed by lawn grubs. Your lawn will recover quickly but if they bother you then use "Organic Plus" fertiliser with Neem and this will control the grubs but won’t harm the predators.

We use and recommend "Organic Plus" because it is environmentally friendly, slow release, has everything in it for most lawns and contains Neem to suppress lawn grubs. 40 grams per square metre 2 o 3 times a year is plenty.

So, after a few weeks with Organic Plus, I will post a follow up.

Also, how could I be angry at this…

Oh, and heres a picture of the Pecker Sisters… Just for good measure.

Two weeks ago …

There is really nothing I like as much as spending a day in the garden with Bec, Abbey and the Dog. Even if we don’t end up getting much done, its still so nice to just muck about and lie in the sun. Two weeks ago we decided that we’d plant the seedlings that we had grown from seed (Tommy Tomato’s & Yellow Leaf Lettuce were all that we had from seed) along with some seedlings we had bought (Carrots, Broccoli, Cellery and other lettuce species).

The first step was to clear the garden bed of the viney thing that was growing in there. This thing grows like crazy and it gives me a little bit of confidence that we might be able to grow something in that icky sandy “soil.”

The compost in my first bin (we have two now along with our worms) was nice and ready to go at the bottom, so after taking the bin off, we saw SO many nice big fat worms, we put the top 50cm of compost back in the bin as it was still a little green and used everything underneath. It was beautiful, a lot of it was still a little unbroken down, but the majority of it was of perfect consistency and black as tar. We dug this through the “soil” (I use quotes because our “soil” is very sandy) where we intended to plant our seedlings along with some potting mix from Bunnings.

Once this area was up to standard, we put our seedlings in. A little too close together to start with as the surrounding “soil” was just not good enough to put them in there.

We also put Lucerne over the soil and between all the seedlings to keep the soil moist, keep pests out and keep nutrients in. The benefits of Lucerne are amazing and I highly recommend all gardeners use it. Lots of organic liquid fertiliser and water were applied to increase the goodness available to the plants.

In the “soil” surrounding the vegie patch, we applied the Diggers Cleaver Clover kit to grow through winter and be dug in before summer. However, after doing this we had 2 weeks of solid rain and only one species of Clover have sprouted and it would appear the rain has washed away the mustard seeds. I will scatter some more today or tomorrow.

Two weeks later…

Well, as I took my sweet time posting this, I can include my follow up in the same post (its called Structured Procrastination.) The bloody chooks have gotten out a few times and done their bull-esque foot shuffle all through the vegie garden. Everything is ok, but they keep scattering the Lucerne everywhere.

Unfortunately, my Tommy Tomato is not looking great, despite the raging success of the others.

I have been making sure it gets lots of water, but its not picking up.

The clover is growing like its 1999.

All in all a success. I am happy to have a vegie garden finally, even if it is a little pitiful and pathetic, I am still chuffed that somebody like myself who used to spend more time on my car than sleeping and working combined, can achieve something like this. So many people seem to be afraid of this, afraid of the potential failure. The thing is, if you want to start, just don’t go too big, research a few plants you want to grow and just focus on those, you wont get overwhelmed that way and the benefits and feeling of sheer satisfaction are second to none.