Summer Planning For Your Garden

Woops!

By Cindy Poore

We’ve been busy! It seems to happen every year at this time. April hits and there are just not enough hours in the day to get it all done. Everyone has kept us busy with their gardens and their dreamed-of gardens so I have been remiss in getting our newsletter out in a timely fashion.

Part of the reason I’ve been so behind is because I have stepped up my game and have gone back to school at my advanced age! Yup, bucket list beckons and I went back to school to work on finishing my degree after eons had passed. I did it even though I was afraid I couldn’t do it after all this time. But this past semester was great and I learned a lot. Don’t let fear get in the way of doing what you have always wanted to do.

Let’s talk about the weather…

The weather has been crazy hot for weeks!  Ugh! I’m  so done with it. This heat and the drought restrictions have been  putting a real strain on your landscapes.

One easy trick with watering grass this time of year is to cut your grass higher. As I have mentioned before, longer blades shade the soil around the grass roots and store moisture in the blades for the main grass plant to draw  on in tough conditions. The longer the blade, the bigger the reserve tank your grass has.

Also, please consider grasscycling. Grasscycling is merely allowing the  grass clippings to be returned to the grass as you mow instead of collecting them to

be disposed of at the landfill. Thrice lovely because not only are you helping your lawn by giving it a mini water-saving mulching every mowing, but as the clippings dry up and decompose they are adding organics to the soil to build it up with needed nutrients AND reducing  the waste to the landfill resulting in fewer CO₂ emissions to perpetuate global warming.

Be very diligent on monitoring your water use. We are our checking and fixing sprinkler systems and drip systems every week lately.  Don’t let those leaks and drips continue. Call us for an irrigation tune up to make sure you are not wasting a bit.

Summer is for…

—Sprinklers!  The calls have been coming in like crazy with sprinkler problems. There have been several with issues where they “thought” they had vetted a particular business as professional and they came out to do sprinkler repairs and refused to tell the customer how much they charge. The repair man told her “ Don’t worry, I will make you a deal.”  Literally he refused and got upset when she wanted to know before-hand how much. “You don’t trust me!” he said.

Another charged the customer for installation of check valves to stop the flow of water downhill from coming out of the anti-syphon valves. What a waste of  time and money.

Yes, it is not good to put valves downhill from the highest sprinkler. Sometimes that is what you inherit when you buy the place. But it is against the laws of physics to try to stop that. The water will just back up and flow out the next opening in line.

Anti-syphon valves are designed to allow upstream water to flow out the valve when turned off to protect the potable (drinking) water from contamination.

We will give you price per hour for sprinkler repairs and “guesstimate” how long it might take. When pipes and equipment is underground and digging is required, we cannot see what the issue is so that is why we charge by the hour.  Digging conditions are sometimes problematic and it can take time to find the issue. We will work with you to minimize the costs, and offer you other options to make repairs when possible. Some things have to be repaired immediately, some things can be postponed. Give us a call with your sprinkler issues and we will take care of them for you..

—Manage your sprinkler clock. With temps over 100 degrees, you watering schedule is very important.  Sometimes you just need some advice on how best to set your sprinkler controller. And sometimes, you have no idea on how to work your sprinkler clock at all. We do both for our clients.

Most problems are simple. Like the time a gentleman was having issues getting his sprinkler clock to come on automatically.  He felt it was a simple issue but he just couldn’t figure it out,  and he was right. After much fiddling with the system his frustration just got the better of him and he was done. That one was a quick one. He had no time set on the stations.  This actually is one of the most common issues with a seemingly ok system not coming on. A missed step in programming.  So if you are having issues, get the manual and go through it step by step first.