Here's the final television Turf Tips report. It's a look back at how far my lawn has come from May to now. I realize it's a bit of an unfair comparison to show video from May when the grass was just waking from its winter slumber, but I really have noticed a lot of improvement from the start of the growing season to today.

That doesn't mean I'm entirely satisfied. I came up short of my goal of perfection, but I think that's a little unrealistic when you have two kids who like to play soccer in the backyard and a dog that likes to treat the whole yard as its bathroom. The front yard actually looks pretty good, which you'll see in the last video in this story.

I think the three things that did the most good in turning my lawn around were aerating, proper mowing and proper watering. I had never aerated my lawn in the ten years I've lived in my home and I've learned you should do it every two years. Also, I was cutting my lawn too short most of the time (Steve says 2 1/2 inches at the minimum; a little higher than that is better) and I was not getting an inch of water on my lawn every week which I now know is the right amount.

While this was the last televised tip, I do plan to continue updating the blog until the first frost. Steve tells me that Kentucky Bluegrass will actually continue to grow for a while after the first frost. I'll update soon on how much you should be watering during this early fall period.

BTW, thanks to Steve Sagaser with NDSU Extension for all his help this summer. And also thanks to Patrick Wynne, WDAZ News photographer, who worked every week with me on this project.

This is a tough topic to tackle in a 90 second television news story, so it's nice to have this blog to get deeper into the topic. The Environmental Protection Agency says 78 million U.S. homes use lawn and garden pesticides. Also, suburban lawns and gardens receive more pesticides per acre than agriculture fields. Add in the high level of emissions given off by lawn care equipment like mowers and weed trimmers and lawn care is pretty hard on the environment.

But there are ways you can cut back or eliminate chemical use if you are willing to lower your standards a bit or are willing to work a little harder at lawn care. Here's today's video Turf Tip:

Steve also talked about organic fertilizers; which I didn't get a chance to include in my WDAZ News @ 5 segment. I wasn't sure if organic fertilizer meant spreading manure on your yard (which I'm sure would not go over well in my neighborhood!). Here's his answer:

I'm really facinated by the story of corn gluten; an organic herbicide that was discovered pretty much by accident by an Iowa State University researcher. Here's a link to the ISU webpage that documents the discovery and the research involving corn gluten.

And here are a number of links to websites that advocate organic lawn care and provide tips:

Natural Lawn Care

Beyond Pesticides Group
Environmental Protection Agency Lawn and Garden PageNatural Resources Conservation Service


So will I try to eliminate pesticide use as part of my lawn care system? There's some pretty scary information out there about these chemicals being carcinogens and sticking around and being found in trace amounts inside of homes. I am pretty vigilant about following label directions and keeping the kids and the dog off the lawn for a day after I spray. I also follow the recommendations found in this University of Wisconsin Extension pamphlet on using nitrogen fertilizers. A number of websites also warn against the use of weed and feed products that combine both herbicide and fertilizers. While I didn't use such a product this year, I have in the past. They make a good point that it's overkill to do both at the same time. I also found advice to spot spray for weeds instead of covering your whole lawn with a hose-sprayer application since you likely don't have weeds on every inch of your lawn. Of course with a pre-emergent in the spring, you can't see the weeds yet, so you want to get it down everywhere.

What do you think? Are you concerned about pesticide use in lawns? Leave a comment below.

Here's this week's Turf Tip in which I offer a few ways to spruce up your lawn to make it look like you hire a professional. I cover three topics: edging, painting and dealing with a fence.

My favorite part of the story is the grass paint. I've never used again, but thought it would be fun to test it as part of a Turf Tips shoot. It actually works pretty well, but it's a really dark green, so it stands out a bit, but not as much as the brown spots left behind by my dog. As I mention in the video, you can buy gallons of paint to do your whole yard. It's pretty costly, but if you are hosting an outdoor wedding or party and want things to look perfect, you can actually paint your grass green. Pretty cool!

As far as edging goes; I think it really does make a yard look nice. I have an attachment to my weed trimmer that converts it to an edger. It's kind of hard to control so sometimes my line is not so straight! Even so, it looks good when it's done. I really should do it more often. You can reclaim several inches of driveway if you've let it go too long.

I'm really debating right now whether to go after some parts of my lawn with Roundup and re-seed before the first frost. I might just wait until spring and be happy with where I'm at.

Steve came by today to give me an update on how he thinks my quest is going. The lawn does look better than it did last year at this time. I need to do some more work over the next six-to-eight weeks if I hope to near perfection, though.

With the days getting shorter and Labor Day around the corner, you might think it's time to stop laboring over your lawn, but you're wrong. Some solid effort between now and the first hard frost can go a long way toward getting a great start in 2009. Here's this week's Turf Tip on preparing for the work ahead.

For the most part, Steve says you should wait to do most of this work until we get out of this current hot spell where temperatures are in the upper 80s. I didn't have time on WDAZ News at 5 to get as in depth as a I wanted, so here are some bonus videos with more information on the topics covered in the above story; weed control, seeding and fertilizing:

Weed Control

Fertilizing

Seeding

Here's this week's Turf Tip on insect control. Grubs and Web Sodworms are two problem insects in North Dakota. For more information, the University of Minnesota Extension office has an extensive page on Japanese Beetles which is what grubs become. Sod webworms get the "more-than-you-care-to-know" treatment on this NDSU page.

While grubs and sod webworms can be controlled effectively with insecticides, there is no chemical labeled to deal with another lawn pest, nightcrawlers. Steve's counterpart in Cass County, Ron Smith, says that an application of Sevin will knock down about thirty percent of the nightcrawler population in your lawn. Here's a link to a page that archives a number of questions he's gotten on nightcrawlers. One thing to remember about nightcrawlers; they are, in moderation, good for your grass as they provide natural aeration. If their hills get to be too much, you can knock them down with a power rake.

We did a new promo for the Turf Tips segment. The first one was dated and I think people have seen it a million times on WDAZ. Here's the new one.

Unlike a lot of the station promos we shoot, I was heavily involved in the writing of this spot. I wrote the script and Promotions Manager Angela Cary polished it up for me. We had a good time shooting it with Production Photographer Jake Tracy and Production Director Mike Derman edited it all together.