- Hi, thanks for joining us for The Family Plot: Gardening in the Mid-South.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Spring is here and the   lawn is greening up.

Today, we're talking   about what to do to get it   ready for   the growing season.

Also, we'll show how to   calibrate your spreaders.

That's just ahead   on The Family Plot:   Gardening in the Mid-South.

- (female announcer)   Production funding   for The Family Plot:   Gardening in the Mid-South   is provided by   the WKNO Production Fund,   the WKNO Endowment Fund,   and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Welcome to The Family Plot.

I'm Chris Cooper.

Joining me today is Mr. Booker T. Leigh.

Booker is a UT Extension agent right here in Shelby County, and Celeste Scott will be joining me later.

All right, Booker, so how do we prepare the lawns for the spring into the summer?

- Okay.

At that time of the year again and I'm so happy to start.

I like to have that pretty green grass.

I know everybody else like to have that pretty green grass or whatever grass that you have in your landscape.

And this is a good time to start doing things and getting ready for that.

The first thing I start out doing would be getting me a soil test.

If I read that and I had a soil test, and then it's going to tell you what you need to add to your soil.

Whether you need to add lime or what kind of fertilizer I need to add to it because the soil pH is very important in any kind when you're trying to grow your lawn grass   'cause for most lawn grass,   you need a soil pH   between 6.0 and 6.5.

And the only way to tell   that is by a soil test.

And reading everything about that soil test, your soil pH is very important.

- Very important.

- Very important.

If the pH is off, if it's too high, all the other nutrients you put down on your lawn is not going to be used up by the plant.

You want to make sure that it's used up by the plant, and then when you put it on there So if not, then they're not going to work right.

You just add fertilizer in there and it's not doing any good.

So if you have somebody to take care of your lawn you need to ask them to do a soil test sometime, you know just do a soil test and to make sure that you have it, that's right.

- You're exactly right.

Your soil pH is all about nutrient availability.

So you definitely want to get that right.

- Another thing I do it every year.

I like to sharpen my lawn mower blade before you get started sharpening make sure you have a sharp blade, right?

'Cause you don't want to start cutting the grass with a dull blade.

When you have a dull blade, it's not going to cut the grass.

It's just going to beat it down.

And so I sharpen mine twice during the growing season.

Yeah.

And they easy to take off.

One thing you might want to do you might want to take the plug, remove the spark plug wire.

You don't want people in there working with the spark plug wire on there.

You want to make sure it don't start up or something cause you could have an accident and you don't want to do that.

When you take it off, then make sure you know how to put it back on there because if not and you put it back on there wrong, it's not going to do a good job cutting.

When I first took mine out the first time I had to go back to a store and look at the lawn mower to see how that blade go on there.

So from now on I mark mine when you take it off there to make sure you put it back on there right.

- Right - That's a good thing to do in there, but you need that sharp blade.

And that thing when you start cutting your lawn grass this year if you haven't been doing that, try to cut in different directions.

You know, I try to do it all the time now.

I didn't start doing it.

Then you will see that grass begin to grow better.

You want to cut it one way this time then another way next time and get that grass to stand up.

- Right.

- Because if you cut it the same way all the time, it's gonna be laying down.

So you need to make sure you cut that grass in a different direction so it begins to stand up in there.

- And you want it to stand up so you can get water and the fertilizer - You want to get down to where you're at.

Then another thing, maintain the correct height.

Now I cut mine low twice.

If you haven't   made a cut already   on that first   couple cuttings,   I like to cut mine low.

I like to bag that grass and get all that dead grass out of there.

- Okay.

- Then I started working more to the correct height and cut for during the summertime.

And you should have that pretty grass or something when you start doing that and stuff in there.

So the other thing you want to do to your lawnmower in there, check it out, make sure you're ready to go.

- Okay.

So what kind of grass do you have?

- I have Bermuda grass.

- Okay.

- Yeah, I have Bermuda grass.

My grass now is still kind of dormant.

- Okay.

- Mine begin to come out of dormancy right now.

- Okay.

Now do we need to be concerned about any diseases, you know, in our lawns?

- We could be.

It'll depend on what kind of winter you had.

If you had a lot of snow in there, a lot of ice on it.

And it stayed on there for a long period of time and you had poor drainage.

You might see that grass to begin to not come out right now.

Cause it could be, it damaged the root system.

But normally we have brown patches,   spring dead spots.

Look over the whole   lawn and you'll see   if your grass   not coming out   and you have little   spots out in there.

You probably have one of those fungus disease on there.

- Okay.

- Could begin looking at and see how to control that.

- Okay.

And what about soil insect pests?

- What we do have a lot of times now, a lot of times we start having you might have like armyworm, that get on there sometimes.

Sometimes you have bugs in the grass, grubworms under the lawn in there.

And so you need to check that and how you check for that.

You might want to dig a section of that out of there, look in there see if you have a lot of insects in there.

If you do then you might wanna start a lawn treatment.

- Okay.

All right.

So what about aeration?

So when do we need the aerate our cool season grasses and our warm season grasses?

Why do we need to do that anyway?

- That's a good question, we need to do that too.

Now I did mine a couple years ago.

Aerate it.

I de-thatch it, and that made a big difference in that lawn grass in there.

We opened that grass up some and we got a lot of traffic on there.

Open up the grass and it began to breathe better.

Water got down in there.

I saw a big difference in there.

- Okay.

- But when you want to do that now, when that grass begins to grow.

You know, Bermuda   grass and zoysia grass,   you want to do it when   that grass begin to grow.

You don't want to do it   into the dormancy season.

'Cause you don't want to   expose the root system   to winter weather   all winter long.

And for your fescue lawn   that probably   sometime in September,   you got a   cool season grass.

Whenever you want   to do that,   you want to do it   in the coolest,   when that grass   begins to grow.

So you want to do it   when that grass begins   to grow in there.

So you don't   want to do it when that grass goes into a dormancy I want it just fresh coming out of the dormancy.

But when they get out, you want to aerate it then.

- Okay.

- And you will see a big difference there, you need to try that.

And then you got a lot of dead grass, a lot of thatch in there.

You get you something   like a garden rake.

If you've got little small   areas and rake across   and get all that dead   grass out of there.

And then when   I like to bag mine the first couple times you get all that dead grass out of there.

- So why would we want to get that dead grass out of there?

- It can add thatch over a period of time.

It can begin to do that.

Then you have less water getting down into the root system.

You have less fertilizer getting into the root system and you're wasting a lot of money.

- Okay.

- Another thing that if you need to water that grass, you wanna water it early in the morning time.

A lot of times you start watering the grass late at night and in the evening time, you can start adding disease problems to that grass.

So you don't want to do that.

If you've got a really good thick turf, you can get out a lot of weeds.

It'll choke all that out of there.

So you won't have that problem in there.

I cut it twice a week and when we cut it twice a week there, I'm not moving, but just clip it off there.

And I leave old clippings on the lawn and that adds nitrogen to your soil.

- Okay.

- Yeah and then you don't want it to look like hay out there when you cut it, you don't want just a whole lot of hay out there.

You want to cut it the way I cut it twice a week.

And another thing I can cut it faster when I cut it twice a week.

If you go a real period of time that like, we have a lot of rain, I can't go out there and cut it.

Then I might go bag it then.

To keep some of the other grass off and I get back to cutting it like I should have.

- So we were talking about fertilizer earlier, right?

And we want people to fertilize according to the soil test.

So you get, when you get the analysis back how do you fertilize your lawn?

- When I fertilize my lawn, if it says add 50 pounds,   I go different directions.

I go half this way.

I put 25 pounds this way   and 25 pounds other way.

I make sure I get   a good coverage.

And another thing I   see a lot of times   people have these   fertilized lawn grass,   and they have a lot of   fertilizer on the sidewalk.

You you don't want to get on the sidewalk.

That's not going to do any good on the sidewalk but you want to make sure that you get it on the lawn.

- You know, we were talking about the warm season grasses Bermuda and zoysia, how often, you know, should we fertilize them with the nitrogen fertilizer though.

- One of the things about nitrogen fertilizer   on the bag you gonna   see three numbers.

your nitrogen, your   phosphorus, and potassium.

The nitrogen it don't   stay in the soil too long   grass kind of use   that up because it normally do two things to the plant, make it grow and turn it green.

- Okay.

- You know, you put that on it about three times during the growing season, but your phosphorus and potassium, they build up in the soil.

That's why I say you might not want to, you might want to look at your fertilizer when you're putting it down, because you might want to say like 13-13-13.

Well, those second two numbers you might wanna drop those down later on 'cause they, they can build up in the soil and based on your soil test, but normally the nitrogen leaches itself out fast, it don't stay in there too long.

It comes, do it's job, turn it green, and make it grow.

- And make it grow.

- But the phosphorus and potassium they can go for the root system.

And also, they fight off diseases.

- Okay.

All right.

So we do all those things and we'll have nice clean lawn right.

From the spring into the summer.

Yeah.

We appreciate that good information.

- Thank you.

[upbeat country music] - Blight.

We say blight, especially dealing with tomatoes, right?

We always say blight.

- Oh yeah, got the blight.

- The blight.

- Oh, I got the blight.

What can we do about the blight, you know?

Yeah.

It's a bad thing.

It's definitely, I mean you can just have a lot of people say it blight.

So yeah, it's the blight.

It's a bad thing.

And it can either be referring to a particular disease.

- Okay.

- We have a light blight, early blight, on tomatoes, or it could just, when you use the word blight, it could refer to actually the injury on the leaf.

So it could be a disease,   or the injury that is   caused by diseases   that are blights.

What happens is it could be a   spot that could be the injury.

It could be a lesion.

It could be anything   or can be even death.

You know, blight very   definitely can cause some   of the bad ones can cause   eventually death of the plant.

So it's a bad thing, you know, and if you've got blight, you need to do something to try to remedy the blight.

And as you say, fungicides are, is the way to go, because most of the blights are caused by fungi.

And most of our fungicides are only preventative.

They're not curative.

And the idea is to get it out there and get the foliage covered and the blossoms and the fruit.

So it depends on exactly which blight we're trying to control.

But yeah, it's a bad thing.

[upbeat country music] - All right, Celeste, so we said that there was going to be some math involved.

Well, now's the time for that math.

- Yes, we did.

- So what are you gonna show us?

- Okay.

Well, we're going to talk about proper fertilize, a proper fertilizer application on our lawns.

For homeowners, when you get your   soil sample results,   they're usually going to be   recommending to apply a   certain amount of pounds   of product per 1000   square feet of lawn.

So before we get ready to get out there and put our fertilizer out, we need to make sure that our spreaders are applying that fertilizer at the appropriate rate.

So what we want to do is a little on the fly calibration.

You know, we're not going to get real technical with it.

- On the fly.

- On the fly calibration.

So for example, say that your application rate is supposed to be 2 pounds of triple-15 or triple-13 per 1,000 square feet.

We are going to actually test that theory to make sure that your spreader's working properly.

You want to set your gauge on your rotary-type spreader.

This is broadcast spreader, it's rotary type.

So that means the fan spins and disperses it.

That's going to give you the best coverage.

We want to make sure we set our setting at the appropriate rate.

Your fertilizer bags usually tell you what rate to set that on.

So that takes guesswork out of that.

Next you need to decide, determine how wide the width of your spread is.

And that's easy to do.

You can go out on the pavement push a few feet and see, you know, measure the width of where you've thrown your fertilizer.

We know that this spreader has a five-foot width spread.

So we're going to push it for approximately   a hundred feet.

One hundred times five is five   hundred square feet, right?

So that's half of a thousand.

So our application said   two pounds per thousand.

We've measured one   pound of fertilizer   and we're going to push   it across 500 square feet.

So when I get to the end, if I still have fertilizer left, I pushed too fast or my gauge isn't set properly, and we need to open that gate a little higher.

If you run out before you get to the end then you're pushing way too slow or your door is way too wide open and you need to lower it, okay?

- Okay.

- So I think we're going to do a little demo   pushing it and then we'll   see where we end up.

- All right, Celeste, what do you think?

- All right, well, we got pretty close.

We don't have much fertilizer left in the bottom of our hopper there.

So that means that we got, you know we were pretty accurate as far as our speed, like I said, there's a little left, so I may have been able to walk a little slower.

Slow my pace down a little bit and then we'd pretty much be on target.

Like we said before, if you'd had quite a bit left you want to slow your speed down considerably and maybe consider raising your gate there that lets your fertilizer out as you walk.

So I think that was a good, a good example of how you can do on the fly calibration right out in your own yard.

- On the fly with some good junior high math, right?

- There you go.

There you go.

- All right, well let's talk about some other applicators we have out here.

So you want to start with the sprayer?

- Yeah, sure we can.

Okay, lots of spray application rates, especially for herbicides and insecticides especially, are going to also give their recommendation rates in ounces per gallon.

- Right.

- But then they will specify that you need to use that one gallon of water over a certain amount of area.

And that's where a lot of people get poor insect and poor weed control when they're trying to apply these because they're not getting the appropriate amount of solution on the appropriate area.

So one way that you could make sure that you're doing that properly before you actually mix your herbicide or insecticide in there is that you could fill it up with just water and mark off a 10-by-10-foot area.

That's a hundred square feet and apply, you know, your liquid.

Or actually I would just go ahead and do a 10-by-100, as long as it's just water and cover that area.

And if you use your entire gallon, then you know that you are applying it at the appropriate amount.

And if you have some left then that means you need to walk slower with your applications.

So that's another quick calibration method for handheld, even backpack sprayers.

And it's going to vary a little bit, because you're always having to pump up the pressure.

So you want to try to maintain, you know, as as a good even pressure as you can while you're doing that.

- Because of course with these, you can build up enough pressure before you even get started.

Right?

- Yeah.

But I mean, it's going to decrease as you go down.

So you got to take that into account also.

- Okay.

All right.

Now what about a hose end sprayer?

- Hose end sprayers are great.

It takes a lot of the guesswork out of it.

You don't have to do really any calibration because it's doing it for you.

This is the simplest kind that you can get.

If it calls for two ounces per gallon you put two ounces of chemical in it.

And then you fill it up with water to the line that says one gallon.

You hook your hose up to it and you start spraying.

And when it runs out of material in your bottle, you've sprayed two gallons.

So that's a pretty easy, straightforward way.

There's some that have dials on the top and you have to set them yourself.

So that gets a little more tricky.

- Yeah.

I think I'll stick with that one.

No math.

Right.

Now, what about a handheld rotary sprayer?

Spreader.

- Handheld spreaders, I think are great for homeowners that have really small lawns.

Or if you're needing to do a spot spreading for maybe you're trying to fill in some empty holes in your lawn with some seed, these are great for that, but you can also do fertilizer granular fertilizer out of them.

And there's really no way to do calibrations with these.

I'd say the most important thing to remember is that you need to always have a little bit of overlap.

And that way you don't end up with bands that haven't gotten any fertilizer.

It's really going to show up when that grass starts growing, you're going to have really dark green bands that have grown a lot.

And then you'll be able to see the yellow or tints from where your fertilizer didn't get applied.

- Okay.

And you know what, and that also applies with this as well.

- It does.

- So you have to do some overlapping.

You have to make sure you get good coverage.

- And another tip on that is if you have a irregularly shaped yard, say that, you know your lot's not a perfect square or rectangle.

- Which mine is not.

- Hardly anyone's is.

You probably want to do your perimeter first.

And that way you make sure you get coverage in those odd areas, because we're going to be doing our applications mostly in vertical, horizontal lines.

- Right.

And that's exactly what I do.

And one last thing that I like to let people know is, look, if that fertilizer gets in your driveway, make sure you sweep it back up into your lawn, because you don't want that to go down to the water sewage systems.

- Definitely.

- I mean, there's fish at the end of that chain.

So we definitely don't want the fertilizer to get down in there.

- Yeah, making sure we get that fertilizer put on the appropriate area.

For sure.

- All right, Celeste.

Thank you for that demonstration.

We appreciate that.

[gentle country music] - This is 34-0-0.

We're gonna do some side dressing.

Okay, we want to encourage our vegetables to get real good, robust growth.

On the side of our pepper plants here.

How much do I need?

I always use just about a handful.

Really, to side dress it.

That should be good enough once you get that watered in.

And usually when you get your soil analysis back it'll tell you how much you need to put down in your garden for your vegetables.

Last little bit here and that's how you side dress your vegetables.

[gentle country music] All right, this is our Q and A session.

You ready?

- Ready.

- This is a great question.

- Okay then, ready to go.

- Here's our first viewer email.

"Our yard is almost   entirely zoysia   "with a bit of   Bermuda in spots.

"This year, we have   a grass we've   "never seen before,   and it is   "choking out our zoysia.

"It is almost   impossible to pull it   "up by the roots and it   spreads like Bermuda.

"What is it, and how   do I get rid of it?

Weed killer   did nothing to it."

And this is Greg   in Midtown Memphis.

Okay.

So he wants to   know what is this?

Because it's choking out his zoysia.

- Looks like Bermuda grass got in there.

Bermuda grass got into his zoysia grass.

I had that same problem in our church plot in there and getting in there.

It's hard to get it out of there.

If you use a herbicide in there, you might use something like Ornamec and that'll try to kill it there.

But one thing, when you use a herbicide is, you need to read the label.

- That's right.

- You need to read the label on there and it'll tell you how to use it on there.

And then you might need to do it more than one time on there.

So they don't have, it's gonna take some time to get up.

And when you read the label on that you need to make sure that you don't use it at the right temperature.

'Cause if you start spreading it wrong it can damage your zoysia grass, so you wanna make sure that you use it right.

And read the label.

That one thing we say, you got to read that label on there and go by the label.

If it tell you you need to put so much in there, you need to do that.

But yeah, it will be hard to get out there though.

He got a tough job.

- Yeah, it's going to definitely be multiple applications, Ornamec is something,   the homeowner can   get Grass B Gon.

Contains the same active   ingredient fluazifop.

Yeah.

So do read and   follow the label on that.

Yeah, for sure, but like we always tell people, cultural practices.

Make sure you're going to get a thick stand of zoysia, because zoysia is thick enough to it should be able to crowd out that Bermuda.

- That really thick grass, and I like zoysia grass too.

It's a really thick grass and it should crowd the Bermuda grass out of there.

Yeah.

But it'll take some time for him to do that now.

But he got to read the label and go by the label, if not, it's not going to work.

- Right.

Right.

And like you mentioned before, it'll tell you on the label about the temperature.

So you don't want to spray when it's too hot because it can damage it.

The zoysia as well.

- That zoysia as well.

You don't want that to happen in there.

- So definitely read and follow the label on that.

Just don't take our word for it.

- And when I buy any kind of chemical, I like I like to take the label off there.

And put it in a plastic bag and put it in a plastic bag or something.

Cause if you keep, you keep messing with it on that thing, your hands sweating sometimes you sweat it out and you can't be able to read it.

- That's a good point.

- Yeah.

And you take it off and put your little plastic bag and may put that plastic bag and tape it on the side of the container.

Then you take it out there and read it when you need it and keep it covered.

And that's a good thing to do.

And you need to probably to do that.

When you do that, when you buy any kind of label on the container, try to take it out there and put a little plastic bag, then put back.

Then get you some tape and put back on there.

- Oh, there you go.

Yeah, preserve it.

- Preserve it.

Yeah, because you don't, you're sweating out there, you're cutting, you're sweating, you're trying to get the label later on and the ink will start fading off, and you won't be able to read it.

Also, there's a number on there.

You get, if you have a problem with it, and know you can call that number on that.

On that label, so make sure you know that.

- Right.

They do have emergency numbers.

Everything you need to know is on the label.

So there you go, Greg.

Hope that helps you out and good luck with that.

All right.

Here's our next viewer email.

"We need to get grass   in our front yard   "in an area located   under a large oak tree.

"The area is   in shade all day.

"What is the best kind of   sod to have installed?

And when is the   best time to lay it?"

This is Joe in   Bartlett, Tennessee.

So as you can see there,   it's pretty large oak tree.

Lots of shade.

Are they going to have any success with grasses under that large oak tree?

- You can.

And then looking at that, it looked like the soil is kind of compact under there too.

I saw the soil's compact in there, and he has two choices.

He can just look at the sun.

If he's getting about,   at least four hours of sun,   he might be to go   with a zoysia grass.

Like we have the   Palisades or Royal.

But if not, he's gonna have   to go with a fescue lawn.

- Cause again, shade all day   unless you limb up   some of those branches.

- He probably needs to go with a fescue and the best time is later, that's in the fall of the year.

As you can find this, you can start in the fall of the year and you can find some seed.

You can seed it in the fall of the year.

And if you want to sod it during the summertime you might to keep watering a lot.

You gotta keep a lot of water on it.

- It is a cool season grass.

- And it might not do it well with the sun hitting so hard in there so I'd probably wait until the fall to do that.

And for the sod, I'd seed it.

- Okay.

So again, your suggestion would be the fescue talking about shade.

Now if you limb, you know, some of those branches up and get enough sun down there for maybe the, for the - Yeah go with zoysia, something like Palisades or Royal zoysia, after I look at those two in there and see how they work in there.

But the fescue is probably your best option.

- Okay.

And something else we should mention as well.

Get the soil tests.

- Get the soil tests, that'll tell you what you before you're doing that, you don't want to waste your money putting your sod, 'cause sod is not cheap now.

Sod is not cheap stuff in there.

But like, looking at that tree, the soil is real compact.

They need to aerate that real good, and then lay that sod in there.

- Okay.

Would they need to add any type of, you know, soil or compost, anything on top?

- I wouldn't do anything to that.

You might want to get, if it's real bad, you might wanna get your garden tools just run across there and try to till it up a little bit for that grass to come into good contact with some soil.

So he might want to do that.

He don't have much time, but he can, he can make it work.

Now if you seed it, sometimes you might want to overseed it about, at least about three years, to get a good stand over seed and then you'll get a good stand.

- Fill in the gaps.

- Fill in the gap gaps in there, yeah.

- Okay.

All right.

So there you have it, Joe.

Yeah.

We were thinking you might be successful with that.

- I think so.

- Get that soil test - Take some time, get a little work in there he can do that in there, so yeah.

- Big tree.

All right.

So here's our next viewer email.

"We have nimblewill   growing in our lawn.

What can kill it without   harming our tall fescue?"

And this is David in   Florence, Kentucky.

All right.

So nimblewill, we know, can be a problem.

It resembles Bermuda.

- Looks like   Bermuda grass, yeah.

Yeah.

Almost looks   like it, yeah.

- Almost looks like it,   poor man's Bermuda.

Is what I call it.

- Like the first   thing you said though,   really good turf,   thick turf in there now.

You might can use some chemicals in there now you're going to try chemical herbicide in there to kill, I don't know.

- Yeah.

My, my thing is, you know I always like to start with cultural practices first.

So nimblewill grows by seed and by stolens.

Okay?

So it's going to try to fill in space, right?

So the thing with that is you need a good dense stand of grass.

So make sure you have the appropriate grass species for that area.

Mow it the correct height.

- Correct height.

- Fertilize, according to your soil test.

Okay.

Now, if you want to remove it, it's a couple of different things here.

You can rake it out.

You can either rake it out, or you can dig it out.

Okay.

Now we're talking about chemicals.

There's a couple of different routes we can go.

Pre-emerge, okay,   dithiopyr, is something   you can use.

Pendimethalin,   as a pre-emerge,   but since it's already there,   we're going to be   looking at a post-emerge.

Right.

And we're talking about a post-emerge in tall fescue.

So the only thing that's labeled that   the homeowner could   get is called Tenacity.

Right?

So it's Tenacity.

Read and follow the label.

So if you're going to go   the post-emerge route, there's Tenacity.

But I want you to read and follow - You gotta follow the label directions on that.

Because that's the law.

That they stand behind that law and everything.

So you need to do that.

- And again, it will remove nimblewill from fescue.

But you just gotta make sure that you read the label on that.

Yeah.

So they have it, David.

Thank you for the question.

That was fun.

- That is fun, yeah.

- Thank you much.

- I enjoyed that.

- Remember, we'd love   to hear from you.

Send us an email or letter.

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And the mailing   address is Family Plot   7151 Cherry Farms Road   Cordova, Tennessee 38016.

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That's all we have time for today.

Thanks for joining us.

If you want more information on anything we talked about today, head on over to familyplotgarden.com.

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