[MarkAguglia]

Was this OK to use as a dormant fertilizer?

Went out and grabbed a bag when it was $2 and thought I had read its good to use a synthetic for the dormant feeding. Now today (after applying of course!) I'm reading on Milorganite amd they say do not use a synthetic and also the Expert Gardener Fert bag says only to use when the grass is actively growing.

Did I harm anything? What i used:



Also a lawn update because why not! Backyard looks pretty good but has been a swamp for over a month..nonstop rain and bad drainage.



Front lawn is a bunch of different shades of green.. the spots where I dug out fescue clumps and overseeeded with a TTTF blend dont look great to me.



Let me know your thoughts!

Ps: can we go back to this yet..? Lol

 

[g-man]

Harm? I don't think so. But it was a bit of waste of money. Assuming your top growth stopped, the fertilizer might either sit in the soil until spring or it might leach deeper into the soil (unreachable by the lawn). It all depends on how it was coated and soil temps.

Different cultivars on grass grow at different rates and go dormant at different times. The areas you spot overseeded will look different. Once the lawn starts growing again it should look even again.

 

[MarkAguglia]

That makes sense on the dormancy, thanks g-man. I don't really understand the fert part honestly. I could swear people were saying to use a non organic fertilizer after the grass stops growing but before the ground freezes.

 

[g-man]

There is a method that applies nitrogen in a 3 week period that the grass is no longer growing but the roots are still absorbing some nitrogen. The nitrogen has to be fast acting (not coated) for this method to work. There is another method that uses coated nitrogen but you apply it way earlier.

This is all explained in this post: Fall Nitrogen Blitz

 

[MarkAguglia]

I must've read it there. I know guys were buying up the same fertilizerI used because it was insanely cheap at the end of the season. I'll read up more.