Last lawn fertilization of the year

It’s time to fertilize your lawn one last time. Congratulations if you fertilized your lawn in September and again in November. If you’ve been putting off your November fertilization, now is the time to do it.

Make sure to remove the leaves or mow to mulch them and let them settle down into the grass. Then apply 0.75 pounds actual Nitrogen for 1000 square feet. You should be using fertilizer containing mostly slow release nitrogen. Often this percentage is listed on the fertilizer bag. The active ingredients may list sulfur coated urea (SCU), polymer coated urea, or methylene ureas. Fertilizer made of organic material also contains slow release nitrogen.

The “0.75 pounds actual Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet” instruction is often confusing. To apply lawn fertilizer correctly, you need to know two things – the area of your lawn and the analysis of your fertilizer. Measuring your lawn lets you determine how much fertilizer you should apply. For example, if my lawn is 5,000 square feet, I will need to apply 5 x 0.75 or 3.75 pounds actually nitrogen.

Since the fertilizer isn’t 100% nitrogen, you’ll need to apply more weight of fertilizer than just the 3.75 pounds. If the analysis on the fertilizer bag is 24-4-8, the fertilizer contains 24% nitrogen or 0.24 pound actual nitrogen for each pound of fertilizer. In this example, 10 pounds of fertilizer would give you 2.4 pounds of actual nitrogen. That’s still not the 3.75 pounds we need, so we can do a simple calculation to determine how much weight of fertilizer to apply. Just divide the amount of actual nitrogen you need by the amount of actual nitrogen in a pound of fertilizer. In this example we divide 3.75 by 0.24 and find we need 15.6 pounds of fertilizer for our 5,000 square foot lawn.

There’s a great article about fertilizing your lawn at http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/pubs/ay-22.pdf.

And now for your Thanksgiving pleasure …

I’m already thinking about Thursday’s meal – turkey and dressing and of course cranberry sauce. Cranberries are native to North America. They grow naturally in peat bogs in the Northeast part of the US and up into Canada. Growing cranberries commercially is big business. You’ll find most commercial producers in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.

Growing cranberries at home will take real dedication. (My trusty fruit book doesn’t even list them as an option!) You’ll need to create your own peat bog, digging out our mineral soil and replacing it with bales of peat moss. You’ll need to provide ample water during the growing season. Make sure you have plenty of water available in winter, since you may need to flood your bed for winter protection.

Cranberry plants grow as an evergreen groundcover that produces 6 foot runners. Each runner then produces upright stems which flower and fruit. Cranberries need soils high in organic matter which have good drainage and never dry out. Related to blueberries, they also need soil with a low pH (hence the peat). Cranberries are hardy to zone 2 – as long as they are covered with water in the winter.

Commercially, cranberries are grown in bogs that can be flooded as needed for winter protection. The bogs are also flooded for harvesting. The vines float in water, bringing fruit to the surface where it can be loosened from the vine. The floating berries are then corralled and collected. Because the plants are perennial and the bog soil is never disturbed, it’s not rare to find a 75 year old cranberry bed still in production. You can learn more about cranberries at http://www.umass.edu/cranberry/cranberry/seasons.shtml.

What now?

Now that Indianapolis has finally had temperatures below 30 degrees F, you might be wondering what will become of your annuals. Many will die with the cold. Tender annuals cannot tolerate frost at all and decline as the weather cools. This includes impatiens, marigolds, flowering tobacco, zinnias, petunias, coleus, and begonias.

Some annuals look good up until frost. These are termed half-hardy annuals. They are killed by frost but their attractive late into fall. They probably look better in fall than they did in the middle of the summer. Half-hardy annuals include cleome, forget-me-nots, mealycup sage, strawflower, and love-in-mist. Half-hardy annuals can be planted outdoors in spring about the time the crabapples finish blooming.

Hardy annuals can tolerate a light frost. Sweet allysum, bachelor’s button (cornflower), annual larkspur, and pot marigold (Calendula) fall into this group. Sweet allysum at White River Gardens is still looking good and much better than it did in the heat of the summer. This is an unusual group of plants. You can plant the seed for these outdoors in fall and tiny plants will overwinter to bloom early in spring, then deteriorate in summer. You can also put out plants in spring when it is still quite cool, about the time Forsythia bloom.

In researching this group of plants, it’s clear there is some disagreement about which plants fall in which category. I used an article from North Carolina State University as my guide - http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/annuals/text/types.html.

Support Indiana's Master Gardeners

The Master Gardener program, administered through Purdue Extension, is active throughout Indiana. The Master Gardener program is designed to help educate the public about gardening through the use of trained, certified volunteers. The program helps participants to grow by providing them with training in horticulture principles. They, in turn, agree to share their knowledge and help others grow.

The 2008 Annual Master Gardener Conference is in Indianapolis in September. To raise money to support this conference, the Master Gardeners of Marion County have created a 2008 calendar. This is a great deal! For $10 you get not only a calendar but monthly tips and gardening haiku. It’s great for gift giving or to start your own year out right.

You’ll find an order form at https://www.ces.purdue.edu/CES/Marion/MGStateConf/MG_calendar_order_Public.pdf. Order one (or two or three) today!

There's still time to plant bulbs

The first touch of frost is not the end of the gardening season. There’s still plenty of time to plant bulbs. Put in a little effort now and your garden will come alive next spring with tulips, daffodils, crocus, and squill.

Bulbs can be planted until the ground freezes. They need a well drained spot. Full sun is great, but many bulbs, including daffodils will grow well in part sun. Make sure to plant them with roots down (it’s not always that easy to tell!) and at the correct depth. Bulbs should be planted to a depth 2-3 times their size.

What if you have bulbs left over? Many bulbs can be “forced”. Forcing is simply treating the bulbs so they bloom on your schedule rather than nature’s. You’ll need bulbs, a pot, potting mix, and a very cool spot or refrigerator. You’ll find information on forcing bulbs on this website: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-19.pdf.

For more information on planting bulbs outdoors see http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-86.pdf.