how many times has it been fertilized since it's been laid in your yard?

no fertilizer--just the mulch mowing. Laid in mid-May.

philes21,
I bet you knew what the answer was going to be before you even typed the question...scary. That's some hungry sod, how about some chips and beer to start with?

DD

okay . . . sounds like my weekend project. What type of fertilizer should I be looking for? Or should I wait until early Sept. when it cools off a bit around here.

Well, you can't put down synthetic fertilizer this time of year without risk the risk of burning the lawn and numerous other not so desired results.

You can however put down organic fertilizers now. These fertilaizers are slow release and will not hurt the lawn, only help. Some of the more well known ones are Milorganite, soybean meal, alphafa pellets, corn meal, Cockadoodle doo, etc.

I have used Miorganite for over a year now and it is fantastic. Soybean meal also is an excellent organic fertilizer.

Milorganite is...well it is waste treatement sludge that is processed and dried, yuck I know, but it is free from anything harmful to humans or animals as long as you don't eat it...well, would you be eating any other fertilizers?
It can be found at Lowes or HD and other popular lawn care stores. You can apply one 36 pound bag for every 2500 square feet of lawn and in about 2-3 weeks you will see some improvemnts.

Soybean meal is a grain feed, thats all. But I think it contais 48% protein which gets converted to nitrogen slowly just like Milorganite. I stopped using Soybean meal only due to the price, otherwise it is just as good as Milorganite and behaves similar. And no you shouldn't eat that either, soybean meal itself is fine, but who knows what little creatures have been running through it pooping in it while in storage. One 50 pound bag should cover about 3500 square feet.

Both are easy to spread and if spread at the proper rates will not give off too much of a smell as it decomposes. Soybean meal will smell like sour milk for a couple days, Milorganite can smell like...well Milwaukee's finest. Also neither will hurt the lawn in the heat.

Those are the my two favorites and I use them only...nothing else.

Thanks guys. A couple of follow-ups:

If properly fertilized, should I be able to restore this lawn?

And should I move to a syn. fertilizer this fall?

Also, is this typical of new sod? I would have thought that between the organic material laid down plus the bed/peat it was in would give it enough to grow on. Guess not?

Yes, yes, yes, and right. ;-) Philes can explain this much better than I can, but sod is grown in an extremely fertile environment. Then it is horribly shocked by removal, transport and installation. It needs food to recover and establish new roots.

What is the type of grass you have?

Fescue.

Would have been nice if the installers had said something like "you're going to want to fertilize this after a month" Jeez--they seemed pretty good otherwise.

No doubt about the shock. It also went from full sun (I assume) to a part shade environment. I suspect at least some of it is not getting as much sun as it would like or is used to. I will be overseeding (per installer's suggestion) with a shade mix this Fall as well.

Whoa! Is the installer part of the sod farm? If not, and given that they gave you no advice on fertilizer, to reference a recent funny post here, fire that sumbetch!

Call the sod farm directly. I mean, if this joker is suggesting that you overseed your new sod with some big box store blend of probably incompatible and mostly sorry grasses, fire his a$$! Right now!

I am sure that the sod farm can give you much better advice than this. In fact, I think they will cringe in such a way that you will see it over the phone if you relay this guy's advice to them.

Not meaning to be harsh at all, just trying to make a serious point!

Don't trust this dude. He may be a great guy, but he doesn't know what he is doing, and is providing advice that could totally ruin your sod.

That said, it could be the case that you need some more shade tolerant grasses in the shady spots. But don't bother trying to figure that out until you have gotten the best you can out of your new sod. Meaning fertilize, water and mow it appropriately for at least a year, and see how it does. If the shady spots are still in trouble there are much better ways of dealing with them than overseeding the whole lawn.

Please keep us posted, I'm sure we can help you out.

Best,
Paul

Yes, you should be able to run out to the sod farm, and they'll sell you some seed, most likely. Same stuff.

But that poor sod needs some food. It was raised from seed, fed about every two weeks, lightly, with Milorganite, or other organic fertilizer, and then the sod got dropped at your place: it hasn't had a morsel of food since then.

Give it an application of Milorganite now, and then a regular big-first-number fertilizer 24-3-2 (see how the first number is big? Plenty of nitrogen) or 18-6-4, September 15th, then another one October 20th-25th. It needs that big food this fall.

Keep us advised.

Thanks again guys.

I'm going to try to get some milorganite on there by the weekend. Should I aim to do another round at the end of August before putting on the high K fertilizer in mid-Sept.? Or is one batch before then appropriate?

Since you have not fed it at all, spread the Milorganite now. If the weather is still hot by Labor Day, you can put another application of Milorganite down, it will not hurt.

I'll leave the rest for others to fill in. I've gotten my soil pretty rich in organic matter at this point and gotten off the synthetic train. You'll probably need a big hit of it this fall to get the roots to grow deep into the existing soil. Then next year you can do as you would like, but you have to feed it regularly, don't stop.

Let me ask re long run:

Would I be better off next year giving regular feedings of milorganite rather than using the traditional spring/summer/fall application of synthetic fertilizer? I'm not asking this from a philosophical perspective of using "natural/organic" but rather from a what's best long term for the lawn.

I'll be getting sod sometime soon, and I don't understand about fertilizing it.
The sod company suggests a 13-13-13 fertilizer.
Milorganite is natural/organic, but it takes awhile to kick in.
Sod is going to be expensive, and I don't want to experiment with it. I just want to help it do the best it can.
What say ye?
Thanks

I think both the Organinc and synthetic approaches work, it is pretty much a choice you have to make...personal preference. You can even adopt some sort of a hybrid approach.

So from my experience...

I'm no tree hugger, but I like what the organic fertilizers have done to my yard. Prior to me using organics in 2006, I had a lawn, not a great one, but that was more due to lack of knowledge, not using synthetics. I will say that since using soybean meal and Milorganite, the earthworm population has gone out of control. Birds are nesting all over, my trees and shrubs have gotten a boost, and my lawn really looks fantastic. It seems the overall enviromental quality of my property has been much higher and keeps getting better.

Could this overall improvement be just from just using organic fertilizers for 3 years now? Well, the earthworms I know like it, and maybe there is a chain reaction, but I have no evidence to support this. However there is no evidence that there is not a relation to this either. So it works for me and I am happy with it.

Bottom line, going the organic route is not a quick fix, it takes time to build the health of your soil up. That is the whole basis for organics, building the health of the soil. You also can use organics all season, it does not matter what the temps are. Applying Milorganite in May, June, July, August, September, and October seems to work fine. You can apply 1/2 applications every 2-3 weeks to keep the micro herd at its peak all summer, the choice is yours. Just remember, the more you apply, the more you will mow.

Synthetics react much more quickly for getting the nutrients directly to the plant itself. They good to use in May, June (maybe), September, October, November. I don't use them anymore so I'm not the one to give good advice on this, but they will make the grass green quickly. Will they directly promote micro organism and earthworm population? I don't think they do. So will there be a significant enviomental improvement on your property? I don't know, but I would guess no.

I don't want to turn this into a flaming post, so I'll just leave you with my experience and thoughts. You'll have to research and make your own choice for the long term.

Thanks egghead2004.
To be honest, researching this forum has caused my confusion.
The more you learn, the more choices - and the more "confuseder" I get.

I'd like to offer the OP a different comment. If the grass is green it probably has sufficient nutrients. What you don't have is the soil biology going to break down the clippings quickly enough which is the brown layer you are seeing. You amended with OM, but what type and quality?

I don't know the health of your soil before or after the sod was laid. You can continue with your cultural practice and eventually the soil will catch up, particularly with organic fertilizers. If you want to accelerate the process then aerated compost teas are suppose to help in reestablishing a healthy soil food web, but I think the evidence of proof is anecdotal instead of scientific.

Tall fescue is a relatively rugged grass without a high nitrogen fertilizer requirement. It only needs about 3 pounds per 1000 of nitrogen per year. Most of that should come over 2-3 feedings in the fall.

I don't doubt that a little fertilizer is required for optimum color, but you also don't want so much top growth that you create a thatch layer.

Milorganite (or if you're out East, Bay State Organic) is wonderful stuff, and it provides organic material, which most lawns need desperately, and some lawns just need.

It is wonderful for summer applications, when the lawn needs a little snack (and a little organic material, to keep the thatch layer under control).

But there are surely cheaper ways to get Nitrogen onto a lawn than using Milorganite. That's why, in the fall, we (you and I) will use a big-first-number fertilizer, like a 26-2-4, rather than Milorganite's 5-2-0. Would you rather put 26 down once, or put Milorganite down five times, to add up to that 26?

In the fall, the lawn needs more nitrogen than it can use. For some lawns, the fall shot of nitrogen is the only thing keeping it alive, in competition with the weeds and junk grasses. The lawn, in the fall, should have two applications of a big-first-number fertilizer, about five to six weeks apart. There are some here who will say 'only one' in the fall, but they don't have your new, hungry, lawn. For you, for this season and next, it's two. We'll talk next year, as to how it's going. And growing.

Soccer dad--The brown is not the clippings. The mower puts out extremely fine clippings, which basically disappear. The brown is definitely brown lawn underneath the green, which seems to be diagnosed as inadequate nutrients, which I can buy. There may also be some drying, which results simply from having edges where it needs more water than it gets. But at least that I know and can address.

I've got a couple bags of milorganite, which should get me one feeding with some left over for a second feeding in a few weeks. I'll hit with synthetic later this fall.

and Bravo!! (applause, applause...)

Watson?

Yes, Holmes?

This case is closed.

Hey, let's see what happens in a couple of weeks . . .

But thanks to all the pointers--I'm looking forward to some lushness. (and some rain . . . we could use it)