By Executive Director Joe Holtrop

As I write this on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I reflect on what a normal April used to be.  I’d be busy every Saturday teaching natural landscaping classes. Thanks to COVID-19, not this spring.  No classes, no March Madness, no Seattle Sounders, no going to restaurants and bars, toilet paper hoarding, stay home-stay safe, social distance, wash your hands, don’t touch your face (good luck with that!), DIY face masks, and on and on. All those closed businesses, people out of work, healthcare workers and grocery store employees risking their health for the rest of us.

I’m one of the fortunate ones still working, albeit from home. Although I hope we never have a spring like this ever again, I can say that all this stay at home stuff has helped me get some long overdue projects taken care of, and even stay caught up on spring chores like mowing the lawn.

Mowing the lawn, it’s one of the great rites of spring in America. Believe it or not, there are people that say they enjoy mindlessly riding around on their mowers. My anecdotal observations suggest these are mainly middle-aged men fulfilling latent farmer fantasies and mothers in need of some time alone. But I, like many, resent the lawn’s perpetual springtime demands.

I have your standard rural acre and a quarter lot that was once all grass. I’ve managed to reduce my lawn area down to about a quarter acre.  Nevertheless, I feel like my lawn still controls my life each spring. If I miss that one dry day, it might be over a week before I have another chance to mow. By then, the grass could be a foot tall, presenting a serious challenge, especially since my old Craftsman riding mower went belly up during this spring’s first mowing.

Lucky for me, I have a teenage son and an old push mower as a backup. And thanks to COVID-19, we both have extra time on our hands. No rain until the third week of April helped too.

The landscaping classes I’ve been teaching for more than a couple decades were designed to offer alternatives to the large lawn landscape. Landscapes that serve us and nature, rather than unrelenting landscapes that demand our servitude.

So, in lieu of this spring’s classes, I offer up some tips on how to take control of your lawn.

First and foremost, relax; you’re not managing a golf course. You might win a battle or two against the dandelions, but you’re unlikely to win the war. Irrigating and fertilizing leads to more grass growth, which means more mowing. Is more grass clipping production really your goal?

Let your grass go dormant in summer. It will bounce back in the fall (although, more than a month without water will cause significant stress).

Consider letting some of your lawn go natural. Maybe only mow the area right around your house on a regular basis. If you do stop mowing some of your lawn, continue to mow a pathway around it and maybe even a meandering pathway through it. This conveys to the observer that what they see is intentional, which it is, thus giving the impression that it is being cared for, not neglected. Regular turf-type grasses will head out no higher than about waist height and are quite attractive in the wind. Field grass planted for hay and pasture, on the other hand, can grow much taller and present a possible fire risk when dry. However, maintaining a firebreak around it significantly reduces the risk.

Consider getting rid of some of your lawn. This requires careful planning and considerable initial work, but the benefits are many. There are different methods of lawn elimination, some of which may be difficult or unadvisable during the governor’s stay home order.

If you have a sturdy back or access to a sod cutter, scalp up the sod and flip it over to kill it. This is most effective during hot, dry weather and followed up with cultivation to thoroughly kill everything. If you have access to a good tiller, you can skip the scalping step, but you’ll need to till several times. If you’re cursed with quackgrass, don’t till, as this will further multiply it. Instead, consider covering the area with black plastic for a few months, but be sure to seal around the edges to keep slugs out.

My preferred method is sheet composting. However, this requires abundant mulch, which may not be readily available right now due to the stay at home order. If you do have mulch, spread it over the turf to a depth of at least one foot. You can reduce the mulch depth by half if you lay down cardboard or construction paper on top of the turf. Don’t skimp on the mulch, because you’ll be wasting your time if you do.

If you start eliminating your lawn now, you still have time for spring planting, provided you have irrigation water available. Otherwise, you’ll be in perfect shape for fall planting.

Hopefully, I’ll be back to teaching the natural landscaping classes in the fall, and these topics can be covered in much greater detail. But in the meantime, I’ll plan to continue to share tips on converting your landscape to a lower maintenance and more nature-friendly part of your home environment. Visit the Conservation Around the House program page of our website for more information.

Spring Pasture Tips!

• Use the “Take Half, Leave Half” rule of thumb; turn livestock onto pastures when grass is 6-8 inches tall and remove them when the grass is 3-4 inches.

• Clip and harrow the pasture after you remove livestock.

• Test your pasture soil and fertilize according to the soil test recommendations.

• Use a sacrifice pasture or paddock to confine livestock while pastures are re-growing.
  

Livestock should have continual access to water troughs rather than drink from streams, ditches, or ponds. Livestock access to waterways can damage banks, and manure can adversely impact water quality. Livestock and horses that drink from streams and ponds can also become infected with liver flukes, a parasite that uses tiny, freshwater snails as hosts. These snails are most commonly found in slow moving water like ditches and ponds. Providing clean, fresh water for your livestock, in troughs, is essential to protecting the health of both your livestock and streams!

Divide & Conquer

Strategically placed water troughs are the centerpiece of a well-planned rotational grazing system for your pastures. Use fencing to divide large pastures into smaller paddocks while also providing access to the trough. Water troughs are popular hang-out spots for livestock during warm weather. Install a gravel pad under the trough to create a durable surface and reduce mud. Provide a mineral or salt block near the water trough that can be moved between the rotational grazing paddocks.

If you purchased bare-root plants from us this winter, they’re probably getting a little thirsty about now. How thirsty depends on where you planted them.

Potted plants should be watered as often as necessary to keep the potting soil from drying out, typically weekly in spring and as often as daily during hot weather. Keep potted plants close to a water faucet in a location protected from the wind and afternoon sun.

If you planted directly in the field, how often you water depends on the soil water holding capacity, exposure and competing vegetation. Clay and silt loam soils can hold a lot of moisture, so you don’t need to water very often, maybe once or twice a month, depending on the weather. Sandy, gravelly soils, on the other hand, dry out very quickly and can’t hold much water. You’ll need to give plants in these soils a lot less water per watering but much more frequently; typically, half the amount of water, twice as frequently as in silt loam soils.

When you do water, make sure to soak the entire root zone to encourage a deep root system. But remember, excess water that passes through the root zone is wasted and takes nutrients with it. If you can give your seedlings extra water for the first two or three years, they’ll establish well and develop into healthier plants.

Minimize competition by removing the offending vegetation around your seedlings and mulch. Mulch conserves soil moisture, keeps the soil cool, and inhibits the growth of competing vegetation.

Tie flagging tape or twine to seedlings now to make finding them easier. Alternatively, you can install plant protectors around your seedlings. These not only help you find your seedlings; they help prevent damage from voles and string trimmers. Plant protectors are available commercially or you can make your own by cutting lengths of corrugated drain pipe. Be sure to slice each piece lengthwise to help with easy removal when the plant is older.

Conservation districts are required by state statute “to prepare and keep current a comprehensive long-range program recommending the conservation of all the renewable natural resources of the district.” Typically, these long-range plans are updated every five years; however, because a majority of our current board did not participate in the development of our 2018 plan, we’re updating that plan this year.

As we work to update this plan, we will post draft planning documents on our website, www.clallamcd.org. The 2018 long-range plan and inventory of renewable natural resources and conservation programs are all available for review on our website.

Although so much is difficult to predict these days, our hope is to have a draft plan ready for public comment before the end of this summer. Meanwhile, please to not hesitate to share your thoughts about our current programs and what you think we should be doing that we are not.

In 2019 we made great progress addressing water quality problems associated with failing onsite septic systems (OSS). We provided grants to six financially needy homeowners to repair their OSS. Five of these failing OSS were in the Dungeness/3 Crabs area and were funded through the Conservation Commission’s Shellfish Program.

One irrigation ditch piping project was completed and another was started last year. The two miles of irrigation ditch piping is expected to save about 1.75 cubic feet per second of Dungeness River water. Both projects incorporated shallow aquifer recharge (SAR) as a way to divert river water and store it in the aquifer when flows are high and water is plentiful. There are now a total of nine SAR sites in the Dungeness Valley.

Through a contract with the Department of Ecology, we initiated the Dungeness Well Metering Pilot Project. About two-thirds of the meters installed since the Dungeness Water Rule went into effect in 2013 were replaced in 2019, and four meters were distributed to new mitigation certificate holders. All well owners subject to the Dungeness Water Rule are provided free, cellular-read meters in order to comply with water-use measurement requirements.

Outreach and Education Accomplishments:

We reached a total of 1,351 individuals through our various outreach and education efforts last year. Activities and result included:

• 256 people participated in 11 sustainable landscaping events

• 135 participants in 6 horse and livestock water quality events

• 156 attendees at 5 presentations on district programs and services

• 231 Sequim High School AgScience students participated in soils education activities

• Watershed education activities (in partnership with Feiro Marine Center) with 573 4th grade students from Crescent, Port Angeles and Sequim school districts

• 70 volunteers participated in Orca Recovery Day, learning about the Elwha River restoration and planting over 1,700 trees along the river

Additional Accomplishments Include:

• Technical assistance to 64 farms resulting in

  • 3,626 feet of stream fencing (2 farms)

  • 1 stock watering facility

  • 2 roof runoff systems on barns

  • 5 heavy use areas

• 11 conservation plans prepared or updated

• 191 soil tests processed

• 2 irrigation water management plans prepared/updated

• USFS Sitkum Road runoff design upgrades completed

• Riparian planting along 0.8 miles of stream

• 425 customers purchased over 26,000 native trees and shrubs

Expenditures for 2019 totaled $1,113,274. Grants – primarily state – comprised 94 percent of revenues. Conservation practice implementation, not including staff time, accounted for roughly 67 percent of expenditures.

Free Online Classes to Enhance Your Forestland

The COVID-19 outbreak is not slowing down the education programs of Washington State University Extension Forestry and Washington State Department of Natural Resources Forest Stewardship. They have put together a great list of upcoming FREE online educational classes. 

Local Food Directory

WSU Clallam County Extension has put together a list of area farms to assist consumers interested in purchasing directly from farms during the COVID-19 public health situation. The list includes farms offering pick-up on site, home delivery options, or farm stand hours. There are also links to area food banks and free meal sites offered in our county. Visit the Local Food Directory to view farms, or to request your farm be added to the list.

CONSERVATION SPONSORS