Tips For Garden Thatch Control Recipe
I saw the article on Thatch Control on this site searching the web looking for a way to avoid raking thatch. The Thatch Control receipe looked like I had found an inexpensive answer to the problem. However, the solution is too thick and not being drawn up the tube properly. It could be the hose-end sprayer I’m using (an empty Spectracide ‘weed stop’ sprayer), or the liquid soap I bought (the recipe calls for liquid dish soap which I could not find (everything I saw was liquid detergent). I could only find liquid hand soap and used Dawn.)
If anyone has been able to use this receipe successfully, I would like to know what specific ingredients you are using and what type of hose-end sprayer you are using.
The liquid soap should not be an anti bacterial soap if whipping up a recipe for the lawn and garden.
As long as thatch is 1/2″ or less, you do not have to worry about it. It’s when thatch is thicker that it becomes a concern because it can harbor pests and diseases.
Folks with thatch problems are usually those that overwater and put down too much and too high in nitrogen fertilizer.
The clippings that get dropped onto the lawn are not the cause of thatch buildup. That’s assuming you do proper mowing and removing no more than 1/3 of grass blades at a time.
Folks with heavy, wet soil; alkaline, or high pH soil; or soil compaction tend to have thatch problems.
A lawn tonic will not solve the problems that create thatch problems–overwatering, too high nitrogen, heavy wet soil, high pH, or compaction. You can mechanically remove thatch, but it will return unless the cause(s) of thatch are corrected.
If you do mechanically remove thatch, do so in fall for cool season grass and in spring for warm season grass. At that time lawn can be core aerated to open up soil, top dressed, and overseeded.
If core aeration is included in the annual lawn maintenance program and followed by top dressing with 1/4″ soil, and overseeded, then thatch tends not to be a problem in most lawns. The top dressing provides the microorganisms that break down the thatch. Mechanical dethatching is pretty stressful on a lawn.
You can rent a core aerator or hire the service done. You want to aerate in two different directions, making two passes over the lawn. This should give you nearly 2 dozen holes in lawn. Plugs can be allowed to dry out and break down to act as top dressing. Core aeration tends to work better if it has rained or lawn has been deep watered a couple days before aerating.
Jerry Baker’s All-Season Green-Up Tonic
1 can of beer (not light beer)
1 cup of ammonia
1/2 cup of liquid dish soap (not anti-bacterial or concentrated, trust me)
1/2 cup of liquid lawn food (get this at a nursery or farmers’ supply)
1/2 cup of clear corn syrup
Mix in large bucket, pour into a 20-gallon hose-end sprayer and spray on everything (grass, bushes, flowers) every three weeks. One batch covers approximately 1500 square feet.
