Hold onto your wallets lawn afficianados!!!

[SwampYankee]

And probably golfers, too.

I just got the latest cost on my recent trailerload order for 22 tons of 14-25-10 lawn fertilizer. Nothing fancy, just a standard grade fertilizer used mainly as a starter fertilizer for new seedings with 25% sulfur coated urea. My cost went from $16.00 a bag to $22.00 a bag since I last ordered in early April. (although in their defense they did warn us it was coming) Yet another unintended consequence of Ethanol.

Prepare yourself for the sticker shock the next time you walk into the garden center for your next "step" or when the next lawn service bill arrives. I'd imagine greens fees are going to be on their way up to cover the additional expense.

OTOH the gap between organics and synthetics is closing fast (unless the organic guys raise prices just for the sake of raising them)making them a lot more financially palatable alternative which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Cheap starter fertilizer is within a few bucks of very good (golf) fairway grade organic/natural.

[TheDon]

composting is the way to go

[WVOtoGO]

Originally Posted by TheDon

composting is the way to go

X2

-and-

Every month, April through October. Before we drain and clean the two 700 gallon horse water troughs. We make cow manure tea and water the lawns with it. Works great.

[Hatterasguy]

I hate that smell! We go camping next to a cow farm, I'd probably gag making that stuff.

[mgburg]

Originally Posted by Hatterasguy

I hate that smell! We go camping next to a cow farm, I'd probably gag making that stuff.

If you think that stuff is a gas (pun intended), try being down-wind of a pig-farm when they're spreading that "tea" - OOOOOOWEEEEE!!

Green Acres it ain't...more like "Scream Ache-ers!"

[SwampYankee]

Originally Posted by WVOtoGO

X2

-and-

Every month, April through October. Before we drain and clean the two 700 gallon horse water troughs. We make cow manure tea and water the lawns with it. Works great.

One of my organic customers makes all sorts of compost and manure teas for spray applications on residential lawns. He picked up a batch of fish by-product to make tea in ME and had it in a tote in the back of his pickup......OH BOY that stuff must be unpleasant in the summer heat!

His wife must be a saint because the majority of his basement is devoted to his worm bed for harvesting the castings.

[Mistress]

the price of oil drives the economy. What's a lawn service, I thought thats why my parents had kids.

[SwampYankee]

Originally Posted by Mistress

the price of oil drives the economy. What's a lawn service, I thought thats why my parents had kids.

Hell that's the only reason I had so many...

[LaughingGravy]

In our neighborhood, only 3 houses do their own lawns and ours is one of them.
Let's see, my ride on lawnmower is a used Sears Craftsman that runs like a top and cost $75.
It's not a fancy green and yellow brand with a cup holder, but it does have working headlights.

[G-Benz]

Terrific...right when I am in the advent of the "backyard revitalization project" (fill dirt, seed, fertilizer, etc)...

[SwampYankee]

Originally Posted by G-Benz

Terrific...right when I am in the advent of the "backyard revitalization project" (fill dirt, seed, fertilizer, etc)...

Well, Chop Chop! Our price increase won't go into effect until the end of the month just to honor some early order committments. But seed & fert aren't going down anytime soon. Even if you can't put it all down yet you might want to get it and set it in your garage until the time comes.

Our more conventional analysis products and combination products increased by about 18% but anything with higher amounts of Phosphorous (like our starter) jumped significantly more. It might be a good thing since there's generally an over application of P which ends up in the run-off. We've just about eliminated it or drastically reduced the amount of P in all of the various blends we carry, lots of zero's, two's and five's for the second numbers.

[Dee8go]

I noticed Scotts was a lot more the last time I bought some.

[iwrock]

Hmmm.... I need to buy some weed and feed to prepare the backyard for the summer parties. Crap.

[Larry Delor]

It will have to rain here first, before I will think about fertilizer.

[Botnst]

Z, you guys are having fires again this season, too. I feel for the homeowners, the developers, everybody. It's like in California when folks built in the chaparral. It looked like a good idea at the time. Now we know that if we build in a pyrogenic plant community we are going to get fires. That includes the piney woods of the Gulf Coast, The great plains, much of the mountain west, and the Sierras. Oh boy.

B