Page 26 of 28
Learn here and teach others, your lawn will be sustainable and viable with stuff all water.
Fu is spot on! I've been using molasses, powerfeed and seasol every 2 months and my EZ lawn looks great and green after 2 weeks of no rain
I even have earthworms that started in my lawn (came from the turf farm) and have now eaten their way into adjacent garden beds
There is a little saying, "Always spend the money on the soil and never the plant"
You will be glad you did it in 4 years when your mates and neighbours are wondering why they have issues and you don't as much
I mean it won't be perfect from time to time but it's going to pants what everyone else is experiencing
Lots of seamungus green over the turf once layed or seamungus blue before laying and molasses and seasol once it is down.
Well my EZ is down. I'll get some photos tonight.
For those researching:
I followed Fu's general soil prep and irrigation advice and the Compost, Zeolite Spongolite, Olsens and Saturaid cost about $600 and probably took about 2days to prep, dig in compact and level.
I installed 7 MP rotators on an all PVC system attached to my bog standard garden tap (with flexible hose for the last 50cm). No fancy controllers, backflow valves, mains isolation systems, tee offs, solenoids, wires, batteries, plumbers, electricians or other complicated stuff. All up my system cost me $342. Thats right $342, not $3420.
Fu will tell me I need a fancy
Super RoboController 5000 but given that I'll be restricted to turning the bloody thing on once a week, turning a tap isn't too much of a bother. My flow at the tap is 60lpm so there's more than enough to keep those MPs a-rotatin' even with an decent tap timer.
It just doesn't have to be as complicated as the retic shops would have you believe. Took 5 hours all up (I had zero PVC leaks
)
Laying 100m2 of lawn took 2 people 4 hours with a 20m wheelbarrow haul. EZ cost $11m2
There you go lurkers.......that's what you can expect if you're starting from scratch.
Mate please for the love of god, at least put a tap timer on it!!!!!!!
I have a mate who can barely use a garden hose off his back garden tap.
You know I can't agree on your methods but as long as it works, you've used the Mps and your happy... Then I'm happy.
...well until you put a tap timer on it. Please don't go nuts on the water. You can create a monster with EZ when it has too much water and chemical fertilisers.
Having a turf now days is about a sustainable turf, not a water hungry one and not a pesticide and fertiliser gobbling animal.
Put a Green Goulburn Valley or SPC fruit pieces lid on the turf and see how long it takes to fill with water. That will be how long you need your retic on for. Maybe twice a week when it is established.
Please don't go nuts on the water. You can create a monster with EZ when it has too much water and chemical fertilisers.
What do you mean a "monster"? I put a tiny amount of fertiliser on in September, and I haven't done any seasol/molasses/powerfeed since then - it's just natural rainfall. We did have 3 weeks of rain, we mowed, now it's been 2 weeks and we'll need to mow again (it's usually 3-4 weeks between mowing). Is that monstrous?
Quote:
Put a Green Goulburn Valley or SPC fruit pieces lid on the turf and see how long it takes to fill with water. That will be how long you need your retic on for. Maybe twice a week when it is established.
I've watered every 2 weeks in dry weather and my EZ is fine & still looking great!
Mate please for the love of god, at least put a tap timer on it!!!!!!!
I have a mate who can barely use a garden hose off his back garden tap.
You know I can't agree on your methods but as long as it works, you've used the Mps and your happy... Then I'm happy.
...well until you put a tap timer on it. Please don't go nuts on the water. You can create a monster with EZ when it has too much water and chemical fertilisers.
Having a turf now days is about a sustainable turf, not a water hungry one and not a pesticide and fertiliser gobbling animal.
Put a Green Goulburn Valley or SPC fruit pieces lid on the turf and see how long it takes to fill with water. That will be how long you need your retic on for. Maybe twice a week when it is established.
Its cool Fu,
I've come too far and put too much work into this to start over watering and fertilising. I've been saving the lids from the peach containers for weeks now
. I'll get a mains tee off (with isolation solenoid) from the copper done by a plumber and put in some solenoids in a manifold when I get the rest of the garden going. For now, I'll turn the tap.
10mm 3xdaily for two weeks (But to be honest I've already started backing that off with this cool weather - just making sure the soil is always moist.)
Plan is the to drop back to daily 10mm drinks for a month and then onto once/twice per week.
Sounds like a plan
Hi Fu
After preparing the soil as per your advice, we laid EZ on saturday. However, since then we have had 3 days of temperatures about 35 in adelaide.
I have the subsurface drip running 4 times for 10 mins a day and I have been handwatering at night.
However, it is still looking brown in patches.
Do you have any advice to keep new turf alive in hot weather?
With subsurface it is going to really hard to establish and look, with any turf variety in those conditions, it's going to suffer. Especially when its windy, the turf can dry out in hours and with no root system down into the moist soil lower down it's going to be a wobbly one for a bit. It will take. It will improve. Even if bits die, they will come back so don't be to alarmed if things don't go so well. It tough for it. Once the roots get deeper, the subsurface will come into it's own. Make sure they have protected the mains water integrity with an RPZ valve. You don't want pesticides or fertilisers in your drinking water
In hot weather, molasses and seasol are going to make the biggest difference to that turf. Seasol more than the molasses for now. Molasses when the roots get down into the soil. Lots of water and I'd be hand watering it more then irrigating the soil just now. The soil will be moist but the turf may not.
Mate please for the love of god, at least put a tap timer on it!!!!!!!
I have a mate who can barely use a garden hose off his back garden tap.
You know I can't agree on your methods but as long as it works, you've used the Mps and your happy... Then I'm happy.
...well until you put a tap timer on it. Please don't go nuts on the water. You can create a monster with EZ when it has too much water and chemical fertilisers.
Having a turf now days is about a sustainable turf, not a water hungry one and not a pesticide and fertiliser gobbling animal.
Put a Green Goulburn Valley or SPC fruit pieces lid on the turf and see how long it takes to fill with water. That will be how long you need your retic on for. Maybe twice a week when it is established.
oh to be able to runs some mp's sigh
Hi,
I have a bit of a newbie question, as the organic matter and all the good stuff in the soil under your turf gets broken down, whats the best way to replenish it? Just putting manure pellets or something on top? Or is this what the seasol/powerfeed etc does - helps maintain the organic matter underneath the turf?
Thanks!
Paul
You do need to rake over organic composts every year or two. These are vastly different to what soil places will say to use on a lawn. They are not topsoil, they are not a lawn topdress product. They are just a richj compost and hopefully a certified organic one
By using the new breed of ways to care for a turf you can even not use a catcher on the mower and the organisms will break down the clippings on the soil and return more organic matter on a regular basis. What comes form the soil is returned to the soil
This would not be something that is workable if you follow the old ways from when water was plentiful (over the long term) and fixed all our bad practices. Common chemical fertilisers will stop microbial activity form doing its thing and if not using a catcher the clippings just don't break down. A horrible situation
Remember that the soil is an exhaustible resource. Fertilisers don't replenish it. Organic compost does. All that lawn as a volume we clip has come from that volume of soil that has been used. It needs to go back. Can you afford even if it were good for soil, to fill that volume with fertiliser? I doubt anyone can
Oh and Seasol, molasses, Powerfeed and Seamungus all are pieces of one jigsaw puzzle. No one single thing will complete the picture but when all the bits are put together they make a wonderful picture
Hi Fu
Was reading your thread page 1-26, but still a bit confused.
Do we need Bentonite Clay for sandy soil? (in Perth, Dianella to be exact).
What I gathered so far: organic compost, zeolite, spongolite, olsens bio green/bactivate, seasol, powerfeed, molasses, seamungus.
I was reading a online newletter the other day and saw this which I thought would interest WA people. "the topic of sourcing bentonite clay came up again, it can be sourced from various places in various forms, small crumb form from Absolute Organic and Westfeeds in bulk"
Long time lurker, first time poster. This thread is amazing and the contribution of Fu (and others) is simply brilliant. Tis what makes forums like these so valuable.
I guess this is directed at Fu - In Perth and was planning on getting some EZ down before Christmas (following the instructions of this thread to the tee of course
).
My question - is it too hot to be putting turf down now? I saw a similar question asked in this thread somewhere for Melbourne (I think). I was thinking of getting it down now before it got REALLY hot in Jan/Feb (as it does), but I guess it is hot enough here now isn't it?
Thoughts?
citizen,
I'll leave it for Fu to give a conclusive answer but.....
I'm in the perth hills and I put my EZ down 10 days ago and its been smashed by 38 degree temperatures and the most horrific dry easterly winds you could imagine. Lo and behold its going great guns.
I watered 2 times daily (3 on hot days) and its never wilted like plametto or SW does. Its seems to be loving the heat and has roots down into my Fu approved soil already. Try not to lay it on a 40 degree day an I'll reckon you'll be right.
What did happen to me was that the rolls 'shrunk' a bit after the first couple really hot day leaving a few gaps at the edges. I've had to fill these in with lawn sand to stop the edges drying out.
Hope that helps
Hi linelefty
I am too planning to put down EZ turf before Christmas.
Did you use any Bentonite Clay for your soil prep? also, can you recommend any places that can hire small rotary hoe/tiller? thanks!
Sorry I"m in the hills, with more clay than I can handle. I actually added a bit of sand to the soil!
Also because I have leach drains under the lawn I used a manual linear hoe, rather than a powered rotary one.
Some pics!:
Before: Post leach drain installation
After: Retaining done, sleepers installed, soil prep and lawn done!
After: Stairs here will be a challenge
Curved wall for seating/retaining.
Is it possible to have to much water on new Sir Walter?
I followed this thread and laid my turf, and put down a good amount of organic soil and rolled it before laying the turf. The thing is, with sooo much rain since laying nearly 2 weeks ago, the soil is water logged. Can this be bad for the turf? Should I get the roller on it, and flatten it out again while it's wet, or just leave it?
The turf looks great and roots have taken. I have Seasol ready to spray, but haven't done yet due to all the rain. Should i do it anyway?
I never thought I'd have to worry about too much water after turfing......