Shalom - made a fleece bag to put over a submerged pump discharge - works great - gave additional comments on the filtering thread - Just rinse it off and go again.

Welcome to composting discussion tari . Much has been writen about the nessity of balancing browns and greens and you will find a lot of discussions here if you search. Despite all the hoopla,I have found the longer one composts,the less importance they attach to figuring ratios and instead put more energy into looking for compostiable materials. One of the more experienced members here on GW regularly reminds us that compost will happen,with or without being fussed over. All the materials you mentioned are good for composting and are close to the 30 parts carbon C (brown) and 1 part nitrogen N (green) considered ideal while green. If you put them in a bin and did nothing for one year,chances are when you dig into the pile a year later you will find exelent compost. If you sprikle water on the pile during dry weather and stir,flip,turn or otherwise incorperate air into the pile occasionaly,you will have ready to use material much sooner. Toss in some aged cow or horse manure and it will happen even a little quicker still. All those same materials you mentioned will have far less N once they die and turn brown but still have enough to eventualy compost. One of the few mistakes is making a pile consisting of mostly high moisture,N rich green because it can get nasty and stink. Normaly one would add kitchen scraps,bone meal or other N rich material to the fall leaves to get better balance. I have an abundance of ground that alows me to plant clover in early fall. The clover is green from late fall to early summer and not only enriches the soil while growing but is also a ready source of N when hearvested and added to fall leaves.

The soap I use is Dr. Bronner's. You can buy it at health food stores but it is much cheaper if you order it at a place like swanson vitamins. I just ordered a new bottle for half what I would pay at my local health food store. They also have a much cheaper brand of castile soap but I'm so used to Dr. Bronner's I don't mind paying a little extra for it. It didn't clog the sprayer at all. I use a large pump type sprayer that I got at HD.

Starting with Problem 3. what does you soil need? What did a good, reliable soil test say about what that soils needs? Problem 4. Depending on the weather your lawn needs about 1 inch of water per week and it is best to water enough at any one time to get that water deep into the soil, 6 to 8 inches down. But then hot and windy weather can cause moisture evaporation which can mean your lawn needs to be watered more often. Problem 2. The grass will grow back, eventually. As a rule after about 6 weeks you could overseed although my experience is that the grass will be growing back on its own by then. Problem 1. The presence of clover, most likely White Dutch Clover, indicates a protenial Nitrogen problem. A good, reliable soil test will help here because there are several things you need to know about what is in your soil to intelligently determine what to feed that soil. What is the soil pH? What is the balance between Calcium and Magnesium? What is the level of organic matter in the soil? Organic matter opens up clay soils so both nutrients and water are more readily available to plants and in sand it helps hold both nutrients and water in the soil so plants can utilize them. Grasses need about 2 pounds of Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet per year to grow well. 1/2 of that can come from the grass clippings, so mulch mowing is one of the better things to do. How much more Nitrogen needs to be added only a good, reliable soil test can tell you. Too much Nitrogen is a waste of your money since the excess simply flows out and pollutes the ground water.