THE LAWN
(Saturday) One of the down sides of living in a place like Turlock is that you pretty much have to cut the grass year round. Right now it's at the stage where it needs to be done every five days or so (not that I really get to it that often). As I was cutting today I realized that I had not fertilized the lawn since early spring -- at which time I fed it half of the recommended dose with a slow release product. And the good news is that the lawn is still bright green. The secret appears to be mulching. I use a mulching mower which chops up the grass so fine that it can be left on the turf to become a part of the humus. In the past I mulched half the grass and took the other half to the compost pile. But this year I mulched about 90% of the time. So the grass has been making it's own fertilizer and it seems to be working just fine.

I know that most of you are probably not real excited about my grass -- but hey, simple things amaze my simple mind.