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VOLUME I , ISSUE 1
We here in the Ocean County Office of Rutgers Cooperative Extension are cele‐brating the completion of the first full year of the Sustainable Landscapes Education Pro‐gram. My thanks to each of the site managers and project workers who have joined us in this ongoing collaboration. We are now over a dozen sites strong! Now that the initial round of demonstration projects are up and running, Cara and I can focus more on commu‐nication within the network. This bulletin is the first of regular “group” communications, and we will be refining our approach over the next year based on the feedback we get from our primary audience, the individual site managers. This bulletin will be our seasonal “heads‐up,” gateway and networking document. Our specific goals for this bulletin are:
1. Present clear, concise and timely information on site Best Management Practices as reminders for the managers of ongoing projects. We know site management is just part of your workload. As the timing of horticultural actions are often critical to good practice, we’d like to provide some gentle reminders.
2. Provide quick access to detailed information. We will put together one page of in‐formation each for turf, ornamentals, and edibles, and link you to more detailed fact sheets, documents, videos that are available. This bulletin will help you locate what you need quickly.
3. Provide a forum for recognition and thanks. We aren’t going to be able to highlight every accomplishment here, but will at least announce new arrivals to the network and the completion of projects as they become available for your common benefit. We will produce a special year‐end edition this year as an initial directory and recognition of everyone’s work to date.
Also in our sights for the fall and winter are creation of educational outreach tools and pro‐jects to help impact your clients and neighbors. Many of you are using your sites as educa‐tion tools already. We would love to hear and share those stories in the next bulletin!
Introducing the Sustainability News Bulletin
Inside this issue:
Turf Management 2
Vegetable Growing 3
Ornamentals 4
Rutgers Cooperat ive Extens ion of Ocean County
THE GREEN HORIZON THE SUSTAINABLE LANDSCAPES EDUCATION PROGRAM NEWS BULLETIN
SEPTEMBER 2010
Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County, 1623 Whitesville Road, Toms River, NJ 08755
Cara Muscio Marine Extension Agent
[email protected] 732‐349‐1210
Linda Schoch Horticulturist
[email protected] 732‐349‐1246
Charlene Costaris Horticulturist
[email protected] 732‐349‐1246
Rich Mohr County Agent
[email protected] 732‐505‐3671
FACES OF COOPERATIVE EXTENSION
⇒ Check for any local water‐
ing restrictions.
⇒ Water only when needed.
⇒ Water in early morning,
before 8 am.
⇒ Turf in healthy soils needs
no more than 1” of water
a week, in two 1/2” irri‐
gations.
⇒ Calibrate your irrigation
system to accurately
deliver only the water
you need.
⇒ Water turf, not sidewalks,
streets and driveways.
⇒ More detailed informa‐
tion is available in listed
Fact Sheets.
The long, hot summer has taken its toll on many plants, including lawns. Many areas of desirable turfgrass lawns have died, and lawns infested with crabgrass and other an‐nual weeds will die as au‐tumn approaches. Dead lawns mean a loss in ground cover and greater risk of storm water runoff. Ground cover is needed to prevent rains from wash‐ing bare soil into streams, lakes, rivers, and bays. Eroding soil contains sedi‐ment and nutrients (N and P) which are a severe risk for water pollution. There‐fore, lawns with 60% or more loss of ground cover need to be repaired to prevent soil erosion and protect water quality.
What to do? Dead lawns need to have the soil re‐covered. Now is the best time to reseed a lawn. The cooler air, warm soils, and more frequent rain of Au‐gust and September pre‐sent ideal conditions to seed lawns and ensure establishment.
Seed blends and mixtures containing a grass called perennial ryegrass will provide the quickest and easiest repair of lawns. It is also wise to include other grasses in the seed mixture. Interested in de‐veloping a lawn with lower
maintenance require‐ments? Look on the seed label for grasses called tall fescue, hard fescue, Chew‐ings fescue, or creeping red fescue. If you use seed mixes containing them, these grasses become es‐tablished in the lawn over time. These grasses can survive with less water and fertilizer. Tall fescue is a very good choice if you can seed before Septem‐ber 15th* while perennial ryegrass, fine fescues, Kentucky bluegrass can continue to be used later in the fall when the soil cools.
Test the soil to determine what nutrients, if any, are needed. Amending the soil during lawn renovation provides the opportunity to treat the whole root zone, rather than just the
soil surface. Consult your county extension office for information on soil testing or search for soil testing labs on the internet.
Aerating and dethatching the lawn before seeding is very beneficial. Seed fal‐ling into the openings cre‐ated by aeration and de‐thatching is more likely to establish because the seed and soil contact is im‐proved. You can also spread a light layer of compost over the lawn after aerating and seeding. Compost acts like a mulch, retaining moisture for the seed. Compost also adds nutrients and organic mat‐ter to the soil, both of which are beneficial to the survival of your lawn.
Jim Murphy
Turfgrass Specialist,
Rutgers Cooperative Extension
*October 30th for Ocean County sites
For more detailed informa‐tion on Turf Management, check the attached Fact Sheet List.
When over seeding or renovating, you should have the soil tested (if you haven't already) to make sure pH, nutrients, and organic matter content aren't part of the problem in growing the turf. If you need a lab for this, the URL for the Rutgers Soil Testing Lab is www.njaes.rutgers.edu/soiltestinglab. Soil sample kits are available at the Ocean County RCE Office. For information on taking soil samples, see the attached Fact Sheet List, or watch our video clip on the Sustainable Landscapes Program website at http://ocean.njaes.rutgers.edu.
FALL TURF MANAGEMENT ACTIONS
Know Your Soil
WHEN WATERING, REMEMBER... Plans for repair and
rejuvenation efforts need to take place as soon as
possible since the prime seeding and sodding period
for Ocean County is mid-August through
September
Page 2
THE GREEN HORIZON
The summer harvest is in full swing in many of our community gardens. Our gardens can continue to produce well into the fall if we plant for the coming cooler season over the next few weeks. Beans, cabbage, col-lards and broccoli plants are widely avail-able in garden centers, and with a little hunting you may still even find seed. For Ocean County, the first fall frost often falls between October 15th and October 30th, depending on how close you are to the water. Your seed packets or many garden references can guide you in deciding how many weeks ahead of the first fall frost to plant for the best results from these vege-
tables. When replanting a raised bed, re-member the prior crop may have lowered the soils nutrient content significantly (see Options for Fertilizing below). In either case, be sure to develop and follow a crop rota-tion plan for your garden to maintain soil health and manage pests.
The heat and drought of this year should leave no question as to the importance of conserving water in our landscapes. Our vegetable crops are particularly sensitive to the lack of water. Providing individual plants measured amounts of water by hand (hand watering) remains the best way to ensure meeting plant’s needs without waste. Drip systems that provide a measured baseline of water to the soil are a second best option if the size of the garden and the heat of the season present too great of a challenge for the gardeners. Calibrating your system to ensure you are not over watering is critical. In either case, healthy soils and surface mulches will significantly increase the amount of water which remains available to
plants after watering. For more information on water conservation in the vegetable gar-den, see the attached Fact Sheet List. Self-watering containers are far more efficient in water use than traditional containers (an information sheet is now available for con-structing home-made containers). Check the container’s reservoir level at least daily, especially once plants mature and begin to produce. Tomatoes plants that go back and forth between too much water and too little are susceptible to blossom end rot. For more information on vegetable plants, disease, and management, check out the Rutgers online publications and subscribe to the Plant and Pest Advisory Bulletin
PLANT ING FOR A SECOND HARVEST
CONSERVING WATER IN THE GARDEN
Options for Fertilizing Ensuring that your plants get the nutrition they need through the season is critical to supporting a good harvest. Composting takes time and effort, but has many benefits to plants and soil over the course of the growing season. Synthetic fertilizers can be more con-venient and allow the gardener to deliver more specific quantities of nutrients. For more information on buying, building and managing compost systems, see the attached Fact Sheet List and check out the Ocean County Solid Waste web site. If you are buy-ing your plant nutrition “off the shelf”, re-member to shop around enough to buy what you need, and follow label directions.
Page 3
VOLUME 1, ISSUE 1
“...be sure to develop and fol-low a crop rotation plan for your garden to maintain soil health and manage pests.”
Cara Muscio and Rich Mohr have been running rain barrel construction work‐shops for over a year now. Instructions for converting rubber trash cans into rain barrels are available as the third in a series of Cooperative Extension Fact Sheets on Rain Barrels. Ocean County RCE now makes the hardware needed for the con‐version available in a $15 kit. Contact the Ocean County Extension office to get your kits, or if you have a site interested in hosting a workshop.
Good soil preparation, plant selection
and placement, and proper watering are
key to a great ornamental bed. A two to
three inch layer of mulch can reduce
water use and the need to weed. More
than that can create many problems for
your plants. Remember to keep the base
of plants clear from mulch where they
enter the soil, as an excess of moisture
can support disease and result in the
death of the plant. This mistake is com‐
monly made with trees, often because
compacted soil makes digging the proper
sized hole a big job. Adding plants to
your landscape should be seen as a great
opportunity to improve your soil health,
even if only in the area of your planting.
Both Rutgers Cooperative Extension and
the NJ Native Plant Society provide rec‐
ommendations for selecting plants for
our area. Choosing natives and non‐
invasive plants will save you time and
resources in the long‐run, and in addi‐
tion to their own beauty, can attract
wildlife as an added feature. Autumn can
be a great time for purchasing perenni‐
als, even though they may be done
blooming for the year. Many garden
stores are happy to not have to take care
of remaining perennial stock over the
winter, and reduce their price. By giving
your plants much of the fall season to
establish themselves, you can look for‐
ward to a great garden in the coming
year. The Low Maintenance Landscaping
Guide for the Barnegat Bay Watershed
remains a great resource, and is avail‐
able as a pdf file through our website.
Come to our Master Gardeners Fall Gar‐
den Day (September 25th) for more in‐
formation!
Rain Barrel Construction Kits Now Available
Perennials that Thrive
Rain Garden Installers Listing Madeline DiNardo has compiled a list of professional landscapers who have
completed the Rutgers Cooperative Extension rain garden training program.
The directory includes 30 Professionals listed as serving Southern New Jer‐
sey. The training is one and an half days long and involves both in‐class lec‐
tures and a hands‐on demonstration, including the installation of a rain gar‐
den. In Ocean County, the Soil Conservation district has been active for years
in establishing rain gardens at schools and other non‐profit organization
sites, such as the Jacques Cousteau National Estuarine Research Reserve. For
more information on rain garden sites, workshops, or professional design
and installation help, see the Fact Sheet List.
