Crabgrass spraying

Today, I went with Guillerme and Rich to spray the crabgrass at Olin College. Crabgrass loves to grow in warm sunny areas and there are plenty of those areas at the college. Along roadways, parking areas and along all of the sidewalks.

We concentrate on the "hot spots" and do a visual check of the interior areas and spot spray any crabgrass we see. I will be using the Permagreen power spreader and the guys will be using backpack tank sprayers.

This year, with all of the cool weather we are having has, reduced the amount of crabgrass and the size of the crabgrass. Usually at this time of year it is quite large, approximately 7-8 inches in diameter and requires multiple spraying to eradicate it. This year we are seeing the crabgrass to be only about 3 inches in diameter max., which is good thing, because it will require only 2 applications to kill it off.

It takes us the full day to cover the entire campus, and we will be back in a few weeks anyways with the next fertilizer application.

2 days of Fertilizing, at Olin College

Guillerme and I are off to Olin College with a pallet of fertilizer ( 40 Bags ) and 3 gallons of Confront Herbicide, 2 gallons of "Sticker", and 4 bottles of DRIVE. We will not be able to finish the entire college grounds in one day.

The problem we have is that our sources of water to mix the herbicide and sticker with are a good distance from where we are working.

I will be using the Permagreen Ride On spreader which applies herbicide at the same time as I am fertilizing and Guillerme will be using the walk behind commercial spreader to put down the fertilizer on the small, hilly areas that I can not get to with the machine. Guillerme will then have to go over the same areas with a back pack sprayer and spray for broad leaf weeds. After he has done that he will have to use a different back pack sprayer and go along the edges of the walks and pavement and spray the young crabgrass that is just emerging in the hot spots of the lawn. It is better to get them when they are young as the spray is more effective.

We will finish only the upper portion of the college and return tomorrow to finish up the lower portion of the campus.

Second Lawn Fertilizing Application

Guillerme will be accompanying me on the second round of lawn fertilization this time. I will be training him how to apply the fertilizer and also how to use the back pack sprayers to spray crabgrass, which has just started to grow and also to spray the broad leaf weeds in the lawn area.

This is a good trip around our properties because now I can see the fruits of all of our labor during the spring time. All of the grass seed should have come up in the lawns and the new bushes should be growing along with all of the flowers we planted. I will be making notes and reporting back all that I see to Rob.

This year for some reason we are seeing a lot of "Red Thread" in the lawns and this is an indication of a lack of Nitrogen and also too much moisture being present in the lawn. We have been experiencing a lot of rainy days and also a lot of the days there has been no sunshine to dry out the lawn. I am applying a fertilizer 25-0-5 , with 1% iron which should clear up the problem as far as the nitrogen is concerned but Mother Nature will have to supply the sun and warmth.

First Application of lawn fertilizer, for the season.

Today, I am at Olin College in Needham, Massachusetts, applying the first fertilizer application of the year. This is a large campus and I will be using forty, 50 pound bags of fertilizer to cover all of the lawn area's around the campus.

The fertilizer I am using is from LESCO and it is a Pre-Emergent herbicide, called Dimension. It contains 19% Nitrogen, 0 % Potash and 6% Sulphur along with 0.10% DIMENSION.

We use this to control new weeds from germinating, like, Dandelions, crabgrass and broad leaf weeds. This fertilizer forms a protective layer over the ground, to prevent germination, of the undesired weeds. After this application we have to wait about 10 weeks before we reseed those areas.

This will take Rich and I all day to finish. We will be fertilizing approximately 640,000 sg feet of turf. I will be using a "power spreader"made by PERMAGREEN and Rich will be doing the smaller area's with a walk behind spreader, made by LESCO.