Why I Oughta...

This is the third in a series of posts related to the removal of our large, 70-year-old (but in decline) Norway Maple tree in our front yard.  First, I shared photos of the tree being removed .  Then yesterday, I showed photos and a video of the stump being ground out .  Today, I wanted to talk a little bit about what comes next.  After doing a little bit of digging on the Web about what to do after you grind a stump, I've come to the conclusion that I needed to think about both amending the soil with organic material AND....being deliberate about adding nitrogen.   The stump grinding left behind A LOT of small pieces of wood.  A mulch of sorts.  But, about two-feet-deep. I knew that we're going to plant a new three here, so I wanted to be proactive with the soil.  I also knew that I'm dealing with a LOT of hydrophobic mulch in this area, so anything I do here will likely help.  In fact...I'm pretty sure the act of grinding the stump - AND all the soil and mulch in th

Trying to put down a marker in the lawn diary that I feed the front yard a couple bags of this new Milorganite competitor from Menards called e-Corganite .  It is a 4-3-O 'eco-friendly' product that carries all of the claims that Milorganite does in terms of being heavy in iron, being non-burning and slow release.   Right before Memorial Day Weekend, I threw down two full bags of this fertilizer on the front lawn, the parkway and the 'between two driveways' turf.  I bought five bags, but when I decided to put down a synthetic weed and feed in the backyard about a week ago , I held off on spreading any of this in the backyard.   Here's what the bag looks like: For my record-keeping purposes, this is the third application to the front yard.   First, I used a bag of Ironite on the front in mid/late April .   Followed up by 1/3rd of the bag of Soil Mastery soil conditioner featuring biochar, humic acid, sea kelp and lime at the end of April .  I'm going to do a seco