Fungal disease?

9 years ago

Hi, I'm new to the forum and looking for advice about my lawn.

The turf is about 3 months old, I moved into a new build property and I'm pretty confident there is all sorts under the soil as since I've started gardening I've dug up bricks, stones, glass, bits of construction material and the rest.

Recently, I've started noticing mushrooms appearing in the lawn. At first there were a few but everyday now there seems to be more and more. I pick them daily to stop spores from being released and spreading but I want to know what the problem is.

I've done a bit of research, but to be honest I'm a novice to proper gardening. My lawn could be too wet, (I live in the UK and have been experiencing lots of rain and dew. This morning there were filmy like wet web patches on the lawn in addition to the mushrooms.

I have geraniums, grape vine, sainforth, tufted vetch, dandelions, pansies, hosta, Timothy grass, chicory, clover and a whole host of other weeds and wild flowers growing in 1/3 of the lawn which is fenced off from the rest. The only fertiliser I've ever used are worm castings in order to get rid of white fly on my grape vine. I am also using coco coir mixed with soil in parts I have dug out to grow weeds.

I'm not crazy. I have an 11 year old, 14lb tortoise that's lives in this part of the garden in the summer and the weeds and plants here are her food and shelter. As a result, I cannot use any kind of pesticide or chemicals on any part of the fenced off enclosure or the main lawn.

The mushrooms didn't appear in her part of the garden until a few days ago, which makes me wonder if it is the climate and not a disease as I first thought.

Due to the lack of care from the builders who laid the lawn, it is not level, and when mowed, parts of the lawn were far too short. Some of the lawn is browning/yellowing slightly but most of it is a strong green colour.

I'm worried about my tortoise eating the grass now if the lawn has a disease, I'm not really concerned about the unsightly aspect of the mushrooms. I do understand that they are a product of something, not a problem themselves but I don't know if it's the soil or what.

I have been trying to aerate the lawn today and the soil is hard and but very moist.

Any help on what I can do and what the problem might be would be amazing.

Thanks so much.
Ps. I have attached a photo of part of the grass in question, tortoise included. :)

Comments (3)

dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
The mushrooms are normal in normal, healthy soil. You don't have to pick them, because there are hundreds of millions more fungi in every few cc's of soil. You don't want to get rid of the soil fungi. You want them to be healthy. Healthy means normal and normal means no disease. You can be sure your soil is normal and healthy by applying organic fertilizer 3x per year. And as for organic fertilizer, I have just the thing for you. Alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow). Apply at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. With that you should be able to let the tortoise to eat as much as he/she wants.

You can fix the bumpy soil by filling the low spots with soil or sand. Also keep your mower at the highest setting. And if Mother Nature is providing at least an inch of rain every 2 weeks, you might not ever have to water the grass. You might need to worry about drainage, however.

With hard soil, even when wet, my first thought would be to apply baby shampoo. But with a tortoise, I'm not sure. I don't think the shampoo will hurt the tortoise, especially since you'll be washing it down into the soil. The application rate for shampoo is 100 ml per 100 square meters. Use a shampoo like baby shampoo that you can see through. Don't use one that has conditioners in it. And don't use dish soap because that has anti=bacterial agents in it. Baby shampoo is just a simple formula that seems to work well for softening the soil. It allows the moisture to percolate down deeper into the soil which results in softening it. You might need to reapply in 2 weeks. If that doesn't do it, you can double or triple or quadruple the amount with no problems to the soil. Again, no idea what the tortoise might have to say about it.
morpheuspa (6B/7A, E. PA)
9 years ago
Reptiles don't have a problem with baby shampoo (small amounts can be used, for example, to wash a snake post egg laying or molting).

I'd check specifically to make sure that tortoises don't, but spot research doesn't point out any potential problems. And you're not spraying the tortoise, just the soil.
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dchall_san_antonio
9 years ago
...and the tortoise is not eating the soil, it's eating the plants, so I think the shampoo, assuming it is washed off the plants, would be fine.