By Kim Moar - The Weekly News
If the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, it may have something to do with worm poop.
A local lawn-care company is among the first to introduce a new, environmentally-friendly product made out of worm excrement that's brewed into a compost tea that's sprayed onto grass.
The compost tea revives a tired, old lawn and makes it green again.
Owen Davis and Sons owner Owen Davis said when he first heard about the tea, he was skeptical.
"I'm not an easy person to convince, so I had to see it for myself," said Davis, who's business operates out of Sackville. "It does actually work."
Davis said while it may take four to five weeks after the first application to see a difference, the grass colour will be a darker, healthier green.
"It takes a long time because of the condition of most lawns," he said. "But this stuff will definitely work."
Ideally, he said, lawns should get about three applications over a year to really bring it back to health.
Martin Tanner, who's in charge of the company's compost tea program, said the process is very simple.
The worm compost is transferred into mesh bags and immersed into water held in old stainless steel farmer milk tanks to brew, just like a teabag.
The milk tanks have been retrofitted with an air pressure hose to keep the mixture bubbling and moving.
Once brewed, the tea is transferred into a reservoir on a truck with a spray attachment on it to take out to clients.
Tanner said depending on what the compost tea is being used for, additional nutrients may be added to the mixture.
The compost tea is a multi-use product that is not only good for lawns, but for fruit crops, plants, flowers and other agriculture.
"We're feeding the soil back the biology that's been killed by using chemicals and synthetic fertilizers," Tanner said.
The compost tea is putting natural nutrients back in the soil.
"The best analogy I can give is no one fertilizes the forest and the forest grows well," he said.
With synthetic fertilizers, Tanner said, a portion of the chemicals simply leaches away. The compost tea stays in the soil and slowly feeds the roots.
Martin said people are turning their lawns into "chemical junkies" that need a chemical fix to look healthy. But, he said, while the fix may help at first, the lawn will begin to fail again as synthetic fertilizers are not sustaining.
While the compost tea program is new this summer, Tanner said customers are already seeing a difference.
Lower Sackville resident Glenn Cutting said he first heard about the new lawn care treatment at a home show and signed up to try it.
"It's more a natural, green way of doing things," Cutting said.
Cutting said a few years ago the city dug up a portion of his lawn for a sewer repair and the new sod just never looked good. Now it's as green as the rest of his lawn, he said.
"I'm just trying to be a bit more environmental," he said.
While the compost tea does not kill weeds, a healthy lawn will force out unwanted elements like weeds, Tanner said.
kmoar@hfxnews.ca
