Spokane Dandelions, African Watermelons, and Our Friend Martha

If we had a nickel for every time we were asked the question, "Do you know where we can get a tasty African watermelon?", we'd, um, well we'd be broke. But that doesn't mean that African watermelons aren't important. Furthermore it doesn't mean that African watermelons aren't important in Spokane. Further, furthermore it doesn't mean African watermelons aren't important to Living Water customers because in a very direct way you helped grow them. That's right, while you may not be a hands-in-the dirt melon farmer, you are still, in a significant way responsible for those tasty summer treats. Even if they are grown half a world away in Adiedo Kenya.

A few years ago Mike and Lisa Fairburn, Living Water's owners, were introduced to Spring Of Hope International, a Christian non-profit group involved in bringing clean water and business opportunities to the people of Adiedo Kenya. While the ministry opportunities were immediate and obvious, Mike and Lisa also relished in that fact that they would be able to invest their time, talents, and treasure (through the Living Water Foundation), in helping these beautiful people build a sustainable income to help their families and communities.

An opportunity to invest in agribusiness arose and they jumped at the chance to be a part. With investments of both time and money, a handful of small community farms were started. This not only provided an income source and jobs for the villagers, it also gave the young men and women a reason to stay in the villages instead of moving to the slums around Nairobi. So, not only do these farms establish the obvious monetary changes these poor villages need but it keeps families intact and helps with overall community wellbeing.

Our friend Martha is one of the leaders that oversee's the farming projects. You see her here in some of these pictures. The news coming out of the area is fantastic. We are seeing hope, promise, and sustainability in these villages restored. Yes, there is hope again in what once looked like a hopeless situation. In a very significant way, every Living Water customer has a part in this. A percentage of every dollar we bring in goes to this mission in Adiedo Kenya. So while you might be paying us to make your lawn green, kill the dandelions, or get rid of those pesky aphids, you are also providing jobs and hope to people that desperately need it. And because of this we say THANK YOU!

Please remember the people of Adiedo and agribusiness in your prayers. Among their many needs is rain. Rain at the right times, in the right amounts to sustain the farming progress.

So the next time you get asked if you know where you can get a tasty African watermelon, you can say "Actually I invest in African farming and they produce some tasty mouth watering watermelons. Let me make a few calls."

Contact us at 509-487-3439, if you would like to know more about how you can make a difference in Adiedo, or visit www.springofhope.org.

Alright You Composters...

The leaves are in their final few days of being attached to a tree. Hanging on for dear life they try so hard to remain affixed. But Mother Nature, as we know, always wins. The slow descent is inevitable. The only question that remains is... large green trash can or compost pile?

Let me help you decide their leafy fate. Most composters know that deciduous leaves make fantastic compost for gardens come spring time. However, not all leaves should be used. If your trees had a fungus this year, like shot hole or powdery mildew those leaves need to be discarded.


Fungal spores can overwinter and be detrimental to your garden. The problem is that while the internal temperature of your compost pile might be hot enough to kill most diseases often times it doesn't get hot enough to fill fungi. Even if the pile heats to a point of being able to actually kill the fungi it only takes a handful of leaves not properly mulched to remain a threat.

If you have any questions call us at 1-800-LAWNCARE or check out the website www.livingwaterlawncare.com.

Last Chance to Drench

The leaves are turning hues that would make Crayola jealous just before making their pilgrimage south. Lying quietly having fulfilled their annual duty. Now giving one last bit of life before they wind up behind steel teach and black plastic. Content knowing their offspring will start the cycle again in the spring. A life well lived......

But I digress. A great way to honor the fallen leaves of yester year is to give their replacements the best possible shot at completing their cycle without disease or insect infestation. And believe it or not that starts now. This is the perfect time for a soil drench around your shade trees.

The soil drench is a systemic treatment full of nutrients and insect control that will be absorbed by the root system and stored until spring. This gives the tree a great shot at those early spring insect larva and diseases. The new growth is particularly vulnerable and needs all the help it can get. A late fall soil drench coupled with a dormant oil spray in the spring is a great way to head off disease and infestation.


If you have any questions let us know by calling 1-800-LAWNCARE or visit our website www.livingwaterlawncare.com. 

Just A Little Off The Top

Today we will continue along the same path that we did in our last couple of blogs: getting the landscape ready for winter. The unique thing about today's blog however, is that we are going to reverse fields on you. We're going to do an about face. We're flipping the script. We're doing a 180. You get the idea. Something we told you to do earlier in the year is now not a great idea. But I would like to assure you that we are not crazy people. No it's about the weather. Earlier in the year during the summer we hammered mowing your lawn at your highest mower setting. This helped with keeping the grass healthy. That is not best practice when it comes to fall though.

The thing we have to keep in mind when preparing your landscape for winter is this; limit liability. Deep root feedings help a tree over winter and come out in spring better. Sprinkler blowouts help you avoid a costly sprinkler repair in the spring. Spider sprays help with insects trying to find a warm place in your house for the winter. It's the same thing with mowing short for winter. This practice limits the surface area of the plant which does two things: 1) Allows greater air circulation before and after snow and 2) there is physically less plant to get matted down over the winter so it's harder for snow mold and other early spring fungi to take hold.

So.... scalp it! Take it all the way down. Set your mower at the lowest setting and bag the clippings. Our best guess is you probably won't have to mow more than once or twice more this year. Make sure before you put you mower away for the winter to do one short mowing. You'll thank us come spring.

If you have any questions call us at 1-800-LAWNCARE. Or check out our Tips, Tutorials, and FAQ's page. There's a good chance you'll find the answer there.

Sprinkler Blow Outs, It's Time

There can be two huge benefits to not having your sprinklers blown out before winter. The first is obvious, I mean who doesn't enjoy the beauty of a twenty foot tall geyser in the spring caused by an exploding sprinkler head. They're beautiful and the sound of running water is so peaceful. The second is less obvious but still fun and that is the pond you can create from a frozen line breaking under ground. If you let it go long enough you could probably add koi and some lily pads. You may eventually develop a safe haven for various water fowl.

However, if you don't want to turn your yard into Yellowstone Jr., we would highly recommend a sprinkler blowout. They're inexpensive and could save you a lot of headaches down the road. What happens is this: As the temperature cools and the ground freezes, so does everything in the ground including water left in sprinkler lines. As water freezes it expands often time bursting the plastic lines that transport water to sprinkler heads. You could also have similar problems with the heads themselves. They can retain enough water in the housing to break when it freezes. Costing time and money.

A simple solution is to let us come out and blow the lines out for you. The method is simple. We just hook a big air compressor to your system and turn it on. This forces air through the lines, driving the stored water through the lines and out of the sprinkler heads.

It's pretty painless and gets you all set for winter.

Call us at 1-800-LAWNCARE to get one scheduled. Or go to our website and request we contact you.

Trees: Feed em' good

It's about this time of year we start enjoying the crisp morning air and dreading the rake and black garbage bag brigade that inevitably follows. The leaves will fall covering our nice landscapes and we are forced to clean up after them. It's at this point we typically tell them "we'll see you in the spring" and figure our responsibility has ended for a few months. Not so fast, I say.

While you can take this route for sure, we would highly recommend a deep root feeding. Our method is pretty simple really, we spread a special blend of nutrients around the root system under the canopy of the tree. This will help you trees in a number of ways. First of all the trees soak up the treatment as the last little bit of nutrients before they go dormant and this helps them to winter healthier. Secondly, we find that the trees come out of dormancy with less winter damage. Finally, we typically don't see the early spring fungi and diseases in the trees we feed in the fall. They also fend off the insects better the next year.

The great thing is that this is part of our Fall 40 Special running now until the end of the season. The treatment is 40% off for any customer not currently getting a deep root feeding. So there is no better time to call. 1-800-LAWNCARE, or email us livingwaterlawncare.com/contact-us/.

Sulfur, We Promise It Won't Stink

Do you know that rotten egg smell? The one that stings the back of the throat it's so bad. That's what sulfur smells like. Except, not when we use it. Sulfur is smelly, real smelly but ours doesn't stink. Do you want to know why? It's simple really, our supplier makes it that way. Which is good because who wants their lawn to smell like a natural gas leak.

We use sulfur for a handful of things but primarily it's a late season fungicide and it's a great application to put your turf to bed for the winter. We've seen quite a bit of fungus this year and we'd highly recommend a late season application for any of our customers who've received notes from their techs about melt out, or red thread, it even helps necrotic ring spot. These fungi can tend to reappear. Obviously Necrotic Ring Spot tends to stay around year in and year out. Every extra sulfur application you can get on it will help move it along.

The other reason to order a late season sulfur application is it really helps your lawn go into dormancy healthy and in turn wake up in the spring healthy. Our customers who get the application in the fall not only see their grass come back quicker in the spring but usually there is very little if any of the early spring fungus we tend to see, fungus like snow mold.

It's a very inexpensive treatment and we will start applying it any day now. We usually do our sulfur treatments all the way through the end of the season. Check out our website for more details. Or email us for an estimate. You can always call us too at 1-800-LAWNCARE.