Spider Spray Blog: Tips, tricks and news from your favorite pest control and lawn care company.
When in Doubt Compost
Soil is the backbone of your garden and lawn. Nothing else really matters. If your soil is enriched with decomposed organic matter, your plants will be naturally fed by nutrients released by soil microbes working underground. One of the best ways to add organic matter to your soil is with compost.
Compost improves your soil texture and structure, supplies and helps retain nutrients, provides moisture and aeration, helps control weeds, and reduces the need to buy fertilizers. Compost will improve any type of soil.
-If you add organic matter to sandy soils, you won’t have to water as frequently.
-If you add organic matter to silty soil, the soil will be less slippery and allow more air to the roots.
-If you add organic matter to clay soils, your soil will become easier to work and will allow root systems to develop and water to soak in more readily.
In the Garden
Instead of digging in fresh compost, just add a layer to the top of your soil and walk away. Do this at least twice a year-in the fall and in early spring-and add a fresh layer of mulch on top.
In the Lawn
Just spread compost on top of the lawn by dumping small piles and spreading the compost with a rake to a depth of a 1/2 inch. You can also use a spreader and simply spread the compost on top of the lawn.
If you can commit to top dressing your soil with compost twice a year your lawn and garden will thrive.
Stay away from “Weed and Feed” Products
“Weed and feed” products are synthetic fertilizers mixed with herbicides. They are used by almost everyone and the general public does not know of the harm they are doing to their pets, children, water ways, and soil. “Weed and Feed” products kill the microrganisms living in the soil that break down organic matter, provide nutrients to plants, and hunt and destroy harmful insects like grubs. I just finished reading “Joy in your Garden A Seasonal Guide to Gardening” by Joy Bossi and Karen Bastow and she stated her feelings about “weed and feed” products.
“Stay away from the “weed and feed” type products. Getting the “weed” part to actually hit the leaves of the weeds and stay there is iffy at best. Much more effective is the attack-one-weed-at-a-time approach. At least, that way you are less likely to be exposing every blade of grass, every passing kitty, and every child’s foot to chemical poison.”
Joy Bossi is a Utah native and a gardening expert. She is well known in Utah for her radio program “Joy in the Garden”.
I completely agree with Joy. Typically about 98% of the herbicides in “weed and feed” do not hit their target pest, weeds. Herbicides are designed to kill and more and more research is shedding light on the dangers of herbicides. Stay away from these products and ask your “lawn care” company if they are mixing herbicides in with their fertilizers. If the answer is yes stay clear. Kids should be able to play in the lawn without being exposed to harmful chemicals. It is not worth the risk!
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Our Booth
Just a few shots of what our booth looks like at the shows.
Utah Valley Spring Home and Garden Show
We’re doing another show! We are going to be at the Utah Valley Spring Home and Garden Show this week March 19th and 20th at Utah Valley University’s McKay Events Center. Once again we will be having a great time showing everyone some of our insects, demonstrating how Radar works and most importantly we will be offering a DEEP discount for an inside/oustisde barricade to those who schedule their appointment at the show! We’d love to see you there.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day
Don’t forget to wear green.
Eating Crickets!
At our booth at the trade shows we have Chocolate ‘Chirp’ Cookies. Our office manager Sue grinds up cooked crickets and puts them in the batter of chocolate chip cookies. We also put a cricket ‘garnish’ on top 
They are perfectly edible and according to everyone who ate them you couldn’t even tell they were there. Here were a few of the brave. (Sue made about 100 cookies total.) By the end of the show we had run out of cookies and quite a few people in these pictures just at the cooked crickets by themselves!
Salt Lake’s Spring Home and Garden Expo
Be sure to stop by and see us at Salt Lake Tribune’s Spring Home and Garden Expo at the South Towne Expo Center this week March 11-14. It is always a lot of fun for us to participate in these shows. We love meeting and talking to everyone, exhibiting some of our insects, demonstrating how Radar works and even giving out some of our famous Chocolate ‘Chirp’ Cookies and most importantly we will be offering $20 off an inside/oustisde barricade to those who schedule their appointment at the show!
We’ll keep you updated with how the show goes and even post some pictures of some of you there!
On Channel 8 News in Idaho
We were one the news again! This time it was Channel 8 News in Eastern Idaho and Western Wyoming.
Here is the link to the article and video:
http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story.asp?S=12093756
In the Idaho State Journal
We are thrilled at the response are are getting to our innovative ways at handling some of the worst pest problems: Bed Bugs. Here is the link to an article that the Idaho State Journal did on Spider Spray’s Bed Bug Dog Radar and our Heat Treatments.
http://www.journalnet.com/article_a926c3c4-1acf-11df-b541-001cc4c002e0.html
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