Blog Update!
For those of you not following me on Facebook, as of the Summer of 2019 I've moved to Central WA, to a tiny mountain town of less than 1,000 people.

I will be covering my exploits here in the Cascades, as I try to further reduce my impact on the environment. With the same attitude, just at a higher altitude!

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Corn gluten yumminess

I've been meaning to do this for years to help combat the plethora of weeds in our lawn but I've been too lazy to order and have it shipped. However, this year I stumbled upon bags of corn gluten (shaker bags no less) and finally got around to shakin' it around the backyard (where I didn't overseed).

Corn gluten is generally used in animal feed but a while back some peeps at Iowa State University discovered that it was also extremely useful as a non-toxic weed suppressor (prevents weed seeds from germinating). Plus it adds nitrogen back into the soil. It helps prevent the germination of dandelions (hooray!), crabgrass, pigweed, purslane, lambsquarters and other such weedies. You have to apply it the right time of year for it to be effective (generally early spring when the daffodils are in bloom and in late summer).

I could have used our broadcast spreader, but I wanted to try out the shaker bags. They were a pain in the ass (or arm, I suppose) so next time I'll use the spreader for application.

Anyway, I applied away and enjoyed the yummy fragrance of corn chips emanating from my lawn. The brand I purchased was more of a granule so I was worried about the starlings coming and snacking away all my corn application. So far the bigger problem has been the massive rain storm we had last night that probably did more damage.

I'm curious to see if it helps. It doesn't get rid of existing weeds, so I still have a hot date with my Weed Hound.

Hey, you got any salsa with that?

1 comment:

Alexandra said...

LOL, I just posted a picture of a dandleion in our backyard. Good to know about corn gluten. I had not heard that before!

We have a very "natural" lawn in our backyard. I'd say at least 60% is some sort of green other than grass. It's very shady, so it's a losing battle. Better green than dirt. I'm afraid to kill any weeds or there will be a whole lot nothing with island of grass!

I may try the corn in the front, thanks!