Fairfield Hardware Doit Best

Our store front will be closed July 4th and reopen Saturday July 5th at 8am.  You can still order online 24 hours a day and choose ship to store for free shipping.

We have compiled the following list to help you out encase of an emergency:

• NOAA weather Radio with extra batteries
• Battery powered commercial radio
• Water - at least one gallon per person per day
• Three-day supply of non-perishable food
• Flashlight with extra batteries
• First aid kit
• Whistle to signal for help
• Dust or filter masks
• Moist Towelettes
• Wrench or pliers to trun off utilities
• Manual can opener
• Plastic sheeting and duct tape
• Garbage bags
• Blankets
• Tool kit
• Gloves (both rubber & Leather)

We will be at the Fairfield Home Expo this Saturday from 9am till closing.  We will be giving a class on lawn care at 9:30 am and 1:30 pm at the class room off of the sky walk.  Stop by and sign up for our $1000 Shopping Spree.   See you there!

Here are the spring lawn and garden tips. Stop in to discuss your individual needs.

LAWNS - Apply fertilizer with a crabgrass preventer. We recommend Greenview Crabicide Green Crabgrass Preventer + Fertilizer. Wait until turfgrass reaches a height of 3” before mowing. Then set the mowing height to remove no more than 1/3 of the existing grass blade. If you are needing to sow new grass seed do not apply the crabgrass preventer till all of the new grass is up and growing. It is also a great time to begin a new lawn, whether it be seed or sod. We suggest Fairfield Mix Grass Seed which has been blended just for our area. Remember to apply starter fertilizer with when preparing a new lawn or overseeding. The two products we like for this is our own purple bag of new lawn starter or Grenview Winter Green. Rake out dead grass and apply a lawn fertilizer.

FERTILIZATION - Great time for an early spring feeding of trees, shrubs, and perennials.

SPRING CLEANUP - Now is the time if you missed last year’s fall cleanup. Dead twigs and branches, leaves, and other debris should be removed from lawns and from around shrubs and perennials. Remove protective mulching from around perennials, roses, etc.

ROSES - Cut out dead wood on roses. Prune back to 18-24″.

FRUITS - Plant strawberries now - set plants about 2 feet apart in the rows to prevent overcrowding. Remove flower buds the first year to promote good root development.

TREES & SHRUBS - Look for hatching of insect and mite eggs (i.e. aphid etc) and activity of insects which have survived over winter as adults and larvae (i.e. beetles, and caterpillars) dead wood and winter injury can be pruned out to deter infestation by borers and/or diseases.

Products Discussed

We will be closing early Christmas Eve at 2:30 pm and will be reopening Wednesday the 26th at 8am.

We want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

Dan, Sherry, Dave, Tom, Larry, Russ and Jon

PS: Jesus is the reason for the season!

It’s time for fall feeding and reseeding. Whether you need to reseed a large area or spot seed your yard, Now is the time! There is no better time to sow seed than the fall. Save on our Fairfield Mix grass seed blend by purchasing in 50 pound bags. The rate of application of Fairfield Mix grass seed is 6 to 8 pounds of seed per 1,000 square feet of yard for bare ground. For over seeding use the rate of 3 to 4 pounds per 1,000 sq’. If you are a person who likes a super thick yard you can double or triple the application rate.

If you are not going to be seeding your yard, you can control those weeds that have been green and growing all summer long while your grass went dormant. By killing the weeds this fall you can get ahead of the excessive weeds we will have next spring! You can use our liquid weed killer in a tank sprayer or my favorite, an end of hose sprayer. Remember liquid weed killers must be applied when the forecast is below 85 degrees. So if you are wanting to use a liquid weed killer you will have to wait till next week when it should be cooler. A granular weed & feed fertilizer like, Greenview 2-Way will also be good to control weed this fall. All weed killers, liquid or granular, needs 2 days of sunshine after we apply. If you are putting granular on your yard, you have to apply with the dew on your grass in the morning or wet your yard before applying.

Falling leaves is just around the corner if it has not started in your yard already. Come in a check out our Super Rake which is a 30″ wide leaf rake that is pre-bowed so every tine touches the ground without any downward pressure. You can also mulch your leaves with your lawn mower. I found to do this right you must go cut your leaves each week like cutting grass.

We hope this fall you have the nicest yard on your block. Stop in and talk it over your individual situation, everyone is in a different situation and that is what we are here for.

Dan

If you haven’t put down your third fertilizer application now is the time.  Now is also the time to take care of the bugs.  We have several types of products to control insects.  Stop in and talk it over, everyone is in a different situation.

Look for our get you in the door special for fertilizer plus insect control that will force you to come buy some!

Dan

Here is the referance to the maintenance log for your lawn mower from the eNewsletter. Sorry I forgot to put in the link in the email. I did update the view this email as a web page link. Here is the link for the Lawn Mower Maintenance Log pdf file

Now is the time to apply your second application of your 4-step fertilizer plan. You need to get this down between now and the end of the month. If you have already applied your second step remember minimum 6 weeks between applications.

If you are on our standard Greenview 4-step plan you are now ready to apply Greenview 2-Way. 2-Way is a weed & feed application that is applied to the yard with the dew of the morning still on the grass. Then we need to have two days of sunshine. If you have already applied your 2-Way you still can touch-up your yard’s weeds with a liquid application. Most liquid weed killers are temperature sensitive. The high of the day needs to stay below 85 degrees or the herbicides will start to kill your grass too!

If you are on our yard thickening low growth custom 4-step plan, you are ready for your first “purple bag” of the year.

Remember the purple bag develops root growth so that your yard will be naturally green. On this plan you have to treat your yard for weeds with a liquid weed killer. We have basically 3 choices of liquid weed killers. Ortho Weed-B-Gone is by far the most popular, but the poorest performer. This product pretty much kills only dandelions. It takes several applications to kill the toughest weeds. The best choice of chemicals to kill the weeds in your yard is a chemical called Trimec. We carry this in many different products from several manufactures. This is the best chemical for dandelion, chickweed, clover, and many more. This does the killing in one spraying if applied correctly. The third type of weed killer is an All-In-One weed killer & crabgrass killer. You use this only if you skipped the first step of crabgrass prevention or some crabgrass crept into your yard. I like to apply my liquid weed killer with an end of hose sprayer. My favorite model is a Dial-a-Mix sprayer, which cost $16.49. This allows the easiest mixing because there is no premixing and all leftover chemicals can be poured back into the bottle. You can get by with a standard lawn sprayer for $6.79 which requires premixing before use and you can not have any leftover chemicals when you are done, so a little preplanning needs to be done.

Now is also the time to spray your fence row and any where you don’t want to use a trimmer. My favorite is a product that was called Triox. It’s new name is called Ground Clear and is a concentrate, not the ready to use item with the same name. Look for the one that still has the reference to Triox on the label. This is a complete vegetation killer for the entire year. I use this everywhere because I HATE TO TRIM! I apply this with my tank sprayer to be able to control the width of spray. You get 75 square feet of coverage from a quart of concentrate. So I adjust the width of the spray to between 3 to 4 inches wide, so I can stretch the quart bottle to 225 feet of fence line. This product is far superior to Roundup, which is what I first started using, but I found out that weeds can start to grow within 2 weeks of applying and I was stuck trimming and spraying again. Once I found Triox about 15 years ago it is hard to use anything else.

As a reminder do not sow grass seed after using any weed killer till after 6 weeks has passed. Also if you want to use a weed killer on your new grass or new yard, you need to wait till you cut your new grass 3 times before applying any weed killer.

We hope you have had a wonderful spring and we look forward to serving you this summer

After three days at the hardware show,  we came back with new ideas and new products we will be adding to our store.  We also made special buys with our manufacturers to guarantee product availability.  We atttended seminars to learn more on PEX plumbing products.  PEX is a plumbing system that uses flexible plastic pipe instead of copper or cpvc, which are both ridged systems.  Dave and Tom got an impressive one on one instruction on window screen repair.  So bring in your damaged screens and let us turn them back into new.