Meet the Moderator

Learn how improving your soil can lead to a better looking lawn
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andy10917
Posts: 29739
Joined: February 23rd, 2009, 10:48 pm
Location: NY (Lower Hudson Valley)
Grass Type: Emblem KBG (Front); Blueberry KBG Monostand (Back)
Lawn Size: 1 acre-2 acre
Level: Advanced

Meet the Moderator

Post by andy10917 » February 27th, 2009, 5:13 pm

The moderator of this Forum is ANDY10917 (real name: Andy H). The "10917" part is my Zip Code in Central Valley, NY, which is roughly 50 miles north of New York City in the scenic Hudson Valley.

I am a life-long lover of dark, dark Kentucky Bluegrass lawns, and also a DIY experimentation fanatic who never, ever says "there - I'm done!". Instead, it's off to Google to see how I can break it and build an even "better" version. My lawn is now Version 53.4.6 (beta version) :roll:

I became involved with soil maintenance, soil chemistry, composting and soil testing years ago when I found that my lawn was requiring more and more chemicals and synthetic fertilizers to keep it healthy. The obvious question was asked: "why?". The answers seemed to point more and more to a loss of balance in the soil. I started using the years of college chemistry and organic chemistry I had taken (although my degree wound up being something else) to understand soil chemistry. I learned great lawn techniques from people like DCHALL_SAN_ANTONIO (especially!), BESTLAWN, BPGREEN, TURF_TOES and many others, and although they don't know it (they will now!) I considered them to be my mentors. Over the years, with much experimetation, I have come to a few new ideas that are the outgrowths of their ideas. Originally hiding in the shadows, I found it increasingly difficult to stay quiet when I wanted to blurt out "Yes, but have you considered this angle?". I consider myself honored to be working with the likes of them now on this Forum, and I hope that I can help them as much as I hope they'll help me work with the members of the website.

My approach to this Forum and my Lawn is that while I try as hard as I can to stay "pretty organic", I haven't been able to get to a full organic regimen because the amount of organic fertilizers that I would need for my 1+ acre of lawn is just too much to handle. If you have ideas as to how I might get even more organic, post it or PM me - I'm listening! Also, please be respectful of others that may not agree with your approach to soil management and composting - a "have you considered this?" goes a lot farther than "you're wrong"...

For a little personal information, Lawn Care is one of my biggest interests. Others are aquatic gardening (large planted aquariums that share a lot of the chemistry with lawns) and salt-water fishing. My career is in the design of extremely large databases, mostly in the pharmaceutical industry. I have also taught at the college level in the evenings.

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