Finally! A Truly Low-Maintenance Lawn That is Self-Feeding and Drought Resistant

We finally got our rainwater system installed but now what do we do with this barren wasteland behind us? Hey Provident Preppers I'm Jonathan and I'm Kyleen and the rainwater catchment system was Jonathan's baby but the landscape stuff that's mine and so I went in search of some type of a turf that we could put here that would require very little maintenance and that had very low water requirement because we're in the middle of a drought and we just don't have much water and I was thrilled when I discovered Brandon from Rocky Mountain BioAg and an incredible turf that they have. So in this video we're going to show you what we're going to do here as we talk to Brandon and kind of understand why we picked the turf that we do and why it might be a great solution for your yard. Hey Provident Preppers we have something incredibly exciting for you today. I'd like to introduce you to Brandon from Rocky Mountain BioAg and I reached out to him a few days ago because you know how we had installed those water catchment tanks for Jonathan right there? How big are your tanks? I forgot. Total 2,500 gallons. Total 2,500 gallons but anyway there's two of them and we couldn't finish some of our landscape or do anything to it until those were in place and then we had supply issues so it's kind of really been a mess for a little while. So as soon as those were all covered I wanted to plant I can't plant grass because we have a real drought situation here right and so we've got to be really careful. I want something that is incredibly low maintenance that is drought tolerant and that could be used like for chicken fodder where I could have some of the animals go out occasionally. The main purpose is to provide erosion control because it's on a hill right. A beautiful green area where it can be a nice family environment because right now it is dry and it is dusty and we get all kinds of crazy weeds in it. So as I was doing my research the only place that I found this really cool mixture and it was from BioAg. So I reached out to Brandon and was super excited as he told me more about this. It's a drought tolerant turf seed blend with micro clover but Brandon you have to explain it all to me because I'm just a baby in this. I know what I want and I really want it to be a natural something that's going to just take off and be happy right. Sure not a problem. So go for it. Yeah not a problem. So yeah so we developed actually this mix approximately I would say four to five years ago. It was actually developed when we very first started as a cover crop for the hemp industry here in Colorado. Everybody was using black plastics and all of these other you know things that definitely weren't sustainable. The fields were ugly and so we worked and developed this turf grass blend mix that we had to have you know drought tolerance. All of these different little things and so we worked actually with the company to do it and then once we figured it out and which exact you know items we wanted in there we produced the actual blend. And so that's where it started at and so it would be used as a cover crop to start. And then we started thinking more and more not only a cover crop for fields but then also for people being able to utilize it in their actual lawns or you know green areas that they wanted that they wanted low maintenance low water requirements. And just by chance you know four or five years later now as you know across the nation it's major drought issues. You hear about it every day and so it's really it wasn't us that developed it. I mean you look back and really I mean you know God put these things in place years ago. But what it contains is there's a couple of different fescues it contains. They're fine fescues as well as the micro clover like Kyleen said. So we actually ended up choosing a creeping red fescue and a hard red fescue which the reasons why are those are very drought tolerant. They have deep deep roots which will withstand you know drought conditions. There is still some maintenance to them but it's not nearly like what you would see in a Kentucky bluegrass or some of these other grasses that you plant. And then the micro clover we knew that we didn't want to have to put a ton of fertilization or put a ton of maintenance into it. We wanted to kind of get it established and then allow it to come up and kind of almost you know feed itself. And since clovers there was pipelina micro clover. Micro clover is a very small clover. It's starting to become well known as something that is called an eco lawn per se. But we also added some of that into the mix as well. So it would naturally fix nitrogen from the atmosphere to provide some nitrogen into the growing system. So that's how we yeah that's how we came up with the actual blend. It's a creeping red fescue a hard red fescue and then pipelina micro clover. It also does contain something called a nitro coat which basically that's fancy it's a it's a rhizobia bacteria that that basically populates on the nodules or on the roots of the actual micro clover which that fixes nitrogen. And then as you take care of it you can mow it very low if you need to. A lot of people what they'll do is they'll just mulch it and when you mulch this then you're returning that naturally back into the soil the nitrogen and some of the you know some of the nutrients or the nutrition that you may put on the soil before. Kind of like what I said before it's like a forest right. So the plants grow up they drop their leaves and it returns it. It recycles all the things back to the soil. So that's kind of how we developed it you know and it works great. It's a it's low water needs. It's like I said drought tolerant. It has deep roots. It helps feed the soil microbiology. It fixes nitrogen so you don't have to really fertilize it. There's not much nutritional requirements where you're always putting fertilizers out and things like that. So that's how it was developed. See it's just it's like this miracle stuff. I am super excited to try it. Now if I never mowed it how tall would it get? You know that's dependent on water right. I mean that's what it all goes back to. So it depends on on the water needs. If it's a it's a if it's a very high drought year there's a chance it might only grow six inches tall. Now if all of a sudden we have tons and tons of rain which I pray we do get at some point. You know what'll happen is it will grow taller. You know it could get potentially eight inches twelve inches something like that. But it's all dependent on moisture and how much you're putting on to it. So that's really the major factor. Usually the lawn I mean just to keep it going you know you might have a little bit of water on it a couple of times a week but very little. And then not only that but with the actual moisture that you receive naturally like where we're at here in Montrose we get about 12 inches of precipitation a year which is very little. Exactly so it's perfect. Yeah so that's talking snow, rain, mist if we get it. I mean you name it. So everybody's like oh you live in Colorado that's so great. It's like no we live in a high desert valley. You know it's actually it's it's a desert here. It's just people think Colorado and they think mountains and snow and all this moisture and it's not that way. So that's kind of how it works. So you put very little water just to make sure it stays established and even so once those roots get down and nice and established it's going to stay living. So maybe it will go through a point where oh you know what it starts to brown out because it's not enough water or something like that. A little bit more rain comes or you put a little water on it it keeps it still living. So it works great as erosion control ground cover. Like I said we developed it actually as a cover crop to keep the soils covered and the fields looking nice. And then what's great about it is it can be used in you know overseedings reseeding. So as a as a stand it's kind of how it was developed. So there's a piece right outside my back patio and it's it's just a small little area where we have regular grass. That actually has a lot of weeds in it. Yeah because it's I mean we're talking farmland here. So when I go if I just reseed over the top of that what will happen? So what it'll do is if you overseed or reseed over the top of it this is actually going to start to establish. It should start to choke out the weeds. Now for something like that what I would suggest if there is a lot of weeds in there you may want to do a little bit of control on the weed first. Not necessarily chemical control. We have a product called Fiesta. It's actually chelated iron and it's toxic to weeds but not to lawns. That's cool. I have lawns like iron. Interesting. And yeah we've been distributing that for a while and you can spray the weeds out get the weeds under control then come over overseed it. Get that to establish and then as you grow a thicker and thicker in a you know lawn it will naturally choke out the weeds which that's kind of like the best way to do it. Now once this gets established though we're not going to want to use those selected weed killers like Fiesta due to the fact that it will also it kills broadleaf weeds. Well clover is a broadleaf so we don't want to kill the clover out of the lawn. So that that's one of the things you look at a lot of times like in my lawn I have an eco lawn at my house even and I'll even sometimes hand weed it just like with a normal weeder. It's just a you know it's like a V point and I go out and if there's dandelions there's things coming up that I don't like then I'll sometimes get rid of them but for the most part I just try to naturally leave it even with the dandelions coming up. My neighbors think I'm crazy you know and the homeowners association I live in they think we're crazy but it's like look up eco lawns understand like what we're doing. This doesn't all have to be perfect you know. Yeah and it's beautiful and I'm so excited. So how long would I anticipate for it to be able to be established enough that kids could run on it? Sure you're going to be looking at about 26 to 32 days for the first mowing. So after yeah it's pretty quick we developed it you know so it would actually start to grow quickly get it to the first mowing that was kind of the whole point when we developed it because it like I said it was in a field so we were wanting to be able to plant something early spring get it established and then be able to have traffic on it you know in you know end of May. So plant it like in April first of April whenever those temperatures just start to come up here at least and then be able to have some pretty good traffic on it you know by May. So it might take a little longer it just depends you know on water things like that to make sure that it establishes quickly but it's pretty yeah it's pretty it's traffic tolerant once it you know gets all the way established even as it's established. So but first mowing is about 26 to 32 days. So you talked about it as a cover crop do you ever use it in orchards? Absolutely that's actually when we were developing it that's exactly vineyards and orchards both. So those two yeah because it works also in shade so it works good in shade as well as you know some direct sunlight. Direct sunlight it is you know what it's just like anything we all wither away in direct sunlight so I don't want to say it withers away but it's just definitely you know it likes some shade too. So you're exactly right in orchards and also in vineyards and when we worked with the company that provides us the seed and we were walking through this and telling them what we wanted to develop this blend he said the gentleman I spoke to there he said you know we have the exact things that we use sometimes in orchards now let's just get the you know ratios right for your needs but that's you're exactly right orchards vineyards areas like that. So to get this started you need more water up front to get it started and then you can back off a little bit is that how that would work? Excuse me yes that is correct absolutely so during the establishment period which is about 26 to 32 days somewhere around in there obviously during germination we don't want the seeds to necessarily go dry because if they germinate and they don't get good establishment into the soil the roots then what will happen is they'll wither right I mean it's gonna it's gonna the seeds will germinate and then they just they'll die off so yes so for about the first 26 to 32 days like I keep saying around that mowing period you'll want to make sure that you keep good moisture off and then once that's established and the roots are in and you have good you know good roots then you can start to back off on water that's exactly right. So it's just an investment you have to make up front and then then it pays you back that's right yeah yeah so you and you know for the most part a lot of people they'll cut their watering back between 50 to 70 percent something like that which is drastic especially with the way things are now and you know some of the other things that we have which we'll talk about more they also help like the micromana dry and liquid and flora micromana flora which all of those things help build the soil health which then the soil as we build the soil health all of that in the soil acts as little sponges so you think of a dinner plate it's called a cation exchange capacity but you think of a dinner plate it's big it'll hold a lot you think of a dessert plate it's small it's going to hold a dessert just very little so if you have a soil that is just you know has a low cdc or it's called a cation exchange capacity it's a dinner or it's a excuse me a dessert plate that holds very little water nutrients any of those things so as we build the soil health naturally your plate's going to get bigger holding more water and doing those types of things all right so my seed is supposed to arrive i think today like i've been tracking and i'm really excited so tell me exactly what we need to do when we plant it now like i said the all of it has been recently well most of it has been recently disturbed because we buried these tanks and then we had a skid steer come out and level it right not level it's all on a hillside and stuff but it's smoothed over and right now because it's so dry it's very powdery yeah like everything it needs to be watered but i wasn't quite sure when we should do that if i should wait to plant the seeds and then water it to crust it or crust it before so i'll let you just explain it all to me so i do it right not a problem so like you said before you have the neighbor kids raking rocks that's the first thing you want to get done right get the rocks out of there so you don't have rocks actually in your lawn so that's the first thing that you'll do you'll go ahead and prep it by raking it since it has been disturbed as long as the whole area has been pretty well disturbed there's a couple of things i don't know if the people that put in the actual tanks kept the top soil or not or if they just put the tanks in perfect yeah i don't know if you put the tanks in and said okay we're gonna grate it back over um i don't know what you did there but it's important that we have good healthy soil up on the top obviously you know about zero to six inches down and so if it wasn't actually um you know the top soil wasn't pulled off to the side and then put back over that's okay because the products that uh that we've sent to you uh the micromana dry the liquid and the flora will help actually build that microbiome in the soil so yes go ahead and rake the rocks away um it's been disturbed over the top um so you don't have to go through and till it or lightly till the top usually you want to have you know some sort of tillage or something to break up that top you are correct that you will want to go ahead and water it now the way that i would suggest you do it is you would use uh the micromana dry which is a microbial food it's a dry microbial food that contains trace minerals and other things uh we've developed it over years of soil health research you will want to go ahead and evenly spread that over approximately i think you said it's about 11 11 000 square feet yeah it's a lot yeah you use that at about 12 uh 12 and a half pounds per thousand uh right around there so the boxes that we sent you that'll be just about enough to do that entire 11 000 square foot area so you'll you know get a fertilizer spread or something in order to spread that evenly over the top of that area then you'll want to go ahead and incorporate that slightly or you can incorporate it by lightly raking it so you'll just kind of incorporate that down into the soil then what you would do is uh you would utilize the micromana liquid and you can use that at about three ounces per thousand square feet for this project since we're using the dry and the liquid together and you would want to go ahead and and treat that whole area and you can utilize since it's a liquid product um we actually have a sprayer called a chaffin hose and sprayer that you can put that in and spray that out over it or if you have a compression sprayer like a backpack sprayer anything that would allow that liquid material to be sprayed out over the soil okay as well um so you would do that you would go ahead and prep it that way and then after you do the micromana liquid you would come back and you would use that same hose and sprayer and you would do the micromana uh flora basically uh and so it is steps and you say well why can't i mix the you know the the micromana liquid in the flora together and it's a ph issue uh so that micromana liquid is uh it's ph pretty low for stabilization so we want to put those two out separately so then the flora would be put out and you would soak that area down then and at that point then you're pretty well prepped you know you would let that area dry out like you said there's crusting potentially we don't want to plant the seeds and then next thing you know have those get crusted over and not be able to emerge out of the soil itself then after we do that then it would be time to go ahead and spread the seeds evenly over that area um go ahead and spread them out like you said uh you or just evenly so you'll take all that seed which the seed seeding rates is about between four and six pounds per thousand square feet on a on a pure seed meaning that that's you're not overseeding but you're seeding it four to six thousand uh you have a 50 pound bag so we're going to be right in that range of what you're going to need for that 11,000 square feet we'd spread those out evenly making sure that they make good soil contact so there's even in some in some instances uh what you would do is you would actually take a uh you know a roller or something like that and actually you can roll the seeds in or something that would press them down slightly now you don't want them real deep you would just want them pressed into the soil slightly making good soil contact um at that point in you can use like barley straw or something to cover over the top of it and what that does is that will help with moisture retention as we're trying to get these established so we're not spraying water out the sun bakes down on it and the next thing you know the moisture's gone quickly so by spreading that straw out over that area uh and it doesn't have to be a thick thick layer right it's just a layer to cover the soil then as you start to water it it almost acts as basically like a cover crop but it's just like a dead straw or something like that laying on the soil uh when you do that then it allows that moisture to stay in the soil okay and the best way to do it is so we've put the flora down one time at that point we put the seeds down we put we uh you know put them into the soil we spread out the straw that's when you come back with the second application of flora over the seeds because that helps with germination establishment and nitrogen fixation it really helps build the life of the soil and get those seeds going and then at that point once you do that last spraying of that flora then it's time to just start watering it and making sure that those germinate and come up and that's the basis of how it's done um watering it you know sometimes even this is the hardest part is during the establishment period you don't want it to go dry if you allow it to go dry there's a chance that they've germinated those roots are so small that they might not have enough ability to continue to grow then that's when the it can potentially kill it right in that very early stage um and just you would water it making sure that it stays damp and moist and then it'll start to germinate you know um it depends uh micro clover the pipelina micro clover is about a 7 to 15 day germination period so you might not see the clover right away the others is around the same you know you usually see good germination within seven days uh for the other grass the the creeping red and hard red best and and then that's it so yeah go ahead keeping dry or keeping it wet are we talking twice a day three times a day what i mean we're in june this is late we should have done it earlier just couldn't exactly yeah so that's exactly right we will want to keep it and you'll have to check like the way that it is right like your actual climate if it's uh you know it could be two to three times a day maybe even four like once in the morning once mid you see what i'm saying just so we make sure that that stays moist throughout the entire day uh for germination just like when you're germinating like garden seeds you don't want those to go dry you keep them nice and moist for that germination period uh you are correct it is a little bit late we're talking june it still can be done you know we're selling this all over the nation still people are purchasing it and and you know overseeding and reseeding um the next window as we get into july that's when we'll really push in the envelope if you get into that portion then you'll want to probably wait until like august end of august september when those temperatures start to change again but you're right so potentially you know three times all the way up to maybe four but break it up into blocks right so in morning mid and then evening time okay and that's the way it'd be for the watering then after we get it established it comes up you know it's gonna take require some water it uh you know to get it established then you can do a mowing if you want to um or just let it continue to grow up you don't have to necessarily mow it some people will let it grow some people mow it down it just depends on what what your wants are and then we can take after it's nice and established we can utilize that flora again and we can do another application of it and that just builds it continues to build the health of the the actual grass itself um once that's completed then basically not only the health of the grass but the health of the soil both of those things are pretty well established because we're not wanting to use chemicals on it right we're not using chemicals and we're not using synthetic fertilizers on it naturally that ecosystem is started and then that's when the nitrogen fixation happens and all of those types of things so that's the basis of getting it started that's so exciting good and and then future maintenance so other than making sure that it's watered occasionally and um maybe mode is there anything i need to think about you know not really i mean it's for the most part uh that's really about it um some people do like to you know every once in a while put out more life or you know like the flora or put out some of the you know liquid micromanage to feed the bacterias and things like that but we're really not focused on uh taking care of the grass at that point we're focused on feeding the soil which will then naturally do the remaining of it but it will get to a certain point in time just like i was telling you like with my eco lot this year i have done nothing but i turned on the water for a bit let it water let it come up and that's all i've done is very very little watering uh there's no fertilization that's been done i haven't put out any of the flora the liquid micromanage or the dry micromanage at all it's now operating as an ecosystem and it just naturally does what it does so i like that all of those products too can you just use them in your garden or underneath your trees yes 100 that's where they're that's the way they were developed so we developed them actually to build soil health and to feed soil microbiology which naturally will then feed your trees um or whatever it may be your garden or house plants or flowers i mean you name it that's what we did and so you're exactly right it can be used in gardens they can be used on uh you know turf it can be used with trees fruit trees it can be used on literally anything that you have that's living that has soil the liquid micromanage as well as the flora can be even foliar sprayed on the actual plants itself to help make sure that there's good biological populations and health growing on the plants so absolutely not only is it for uh for i'm so excited like i'm so totally excited i just can't believe that i found you like i was looking all over thinking somebody's gotta be making something like this and so i'm not sure you have much competition out there because i didn't see much yeah there's not much competition truthfully um you know and it's a blessing uh at the end of the day we like to educate people and we like to work with people and there's a reason why you found us you know i mean god plays a role in all of these things and that's what we've seen over the past 14 years of our business of people that we deal with and maybe opportunities that have passed us by and that's you're right there's not much competition and the people that do actually go out and look they find at some point uh you know the doors will be open per se and that's the thing is we're able to build these relationships with people across the nation really that we help out that when they want to learn or they're looking for something specific we run into each other our paths cross and then we're able to educate we're able to help uh we share our knowledge with other people that's really what we love to do you know and people that are willing to listen and learn will spend all the time in the world teaching because this is you know we're living in in times where these are the things that have to be done you know agricultural ground is going away and you know for all the years of use of chemical fertilizers of all of those things that have happened and big agrochem companies being involved and things like that the soils are destroyed and as soils are destroyed food supplies are going to be destroyed as food supplies are being destroyed unfortunately people don't understand how to grow food they don't understand how to do this so one of the things that we have going on right now is a world war three victory garden challenge and we've got this um this playlist where what we're trying to do is help people start growing gardens in their backyards and one of the huge issues that some people have is that this soil has never been worked right and the soil is just it's there's issues and so something like micromana or something like that might be very helpful especially for some of these that the soil is just sterile that's exactly correct i mean you hit it right on the dot i mean to a t that's what we developed it for is to basically be able to take soils that are void of life meaning biological life and soil life and take those soils and be able to feed them with the proper things they need uh within that micromana product line per se that's it's really a technological line of products that we're able to do and then it takes soils that are very void of life or not healthy at all and bringing to thriving soils which will then allow you to very easily grow plants things like that you know gardens trees you name it and that's how it was developed actually so okay one of the other issues sometimes that we have and you guys i think it in colorado too is the high alkalinity in our soil right does this affect the alkalinity versus acidity of the soil 100 so you're exactly correct here where we live we have very high alkaline soils which is another reason why it's so great you understand what we're dealing with i mean alkaline patches sometimes you're talking salts that after storms or maybe we do get a little rain it'll soak to the top and you'll have salt patches very alkaline or septic soils you know things like that and that's exactly right as we build micro uh the microbiological populations or the bacterial populations of soil and we get the soil food web operating properly naturally those bacteria will you can't necessarily get rid of the salt and the alkalinity necessarily but what'll happen is it starts to fix it into their cell bodies and as those bacteria fix it into their cell bodies it starts to buffer the soils and allows you to actually grow plants in you know gardens whatever it may be in soils that are very marginal to horrible yeah all those things yeah so that's that's exactly what it does so if we can build the life of the soil naturally the rest of it will happen that is just so cool that's wonderful i've got one for you um our orchard is a chicken orchard so we have chickens that go out we put them back in at night but every all day they're roaming that orchard it's a fenced orchard it's fenced yes so i'm just wondering if we were to use that in there would we have to you know fence off a portion and do it and how long would that take and then fence off another portion just wondering how we how we would do this knowing that there's chickens in there kind of stirring everything up and and tearing things up sure survive chickens at all the turf uh yeah you know it will um you just have to there will be some damage okay when i say management obviously uh just like when you're managing say a pasture with cattle on it you don't want to overgraze it it's the same principle like with chickens things like that you would want to make sure they're moved so you know maybe it's not destroyed completely the way it's going to help is if that does happen we can use the flora and come back over those areas and actually put the flora back down in those areas that are heavily disturbed which would then help them regenerate quicker because that's kind of what it does that flora helps with plants um or soils that are you know kind of beat up or torn up it allows them to repair themselves quickly and the products that like uh you know micromana all that whole line there's nothing in there that's going to necessarily uh hurt the animals either it's only going to bring life to the system and then to the animals and all the way through the system so you're exactly right so you'll you will have some management that you'll have to do but you're able to repair it like say it gets a little bit overgrazed or torn up pretty bad in an area we'll take that flora put it out and then it would repair itself very quickly or much quicker than just if you left um so that would be the basis of it would we then fence off a little area in there and and seed it let it like we're talking get it going and established and then maybe let them into that a little bit and fence off another area is that that kind of course yeah for establishment that's possible to do it that way so uh the creeping red fescue grows uh by rhizomes which creep through the soil itself so once we get those established those rhizomes shouldn't necessarily be torn all the way out do you see what i'm saying so actually once we're able to get those patches established what will end up happening is those roots should stay there as long as we can get the grass to regrow um so that's exactly right um it's great though if you do take smaller areas it's called mob grazing per se you've maybe heard of that before um it's very small paddocks that you utilize for like the chickens to graze on and then you know you move them to the next little paddock allow them to graze there and they're you know their manures and things like that are actually doing some fertilization as well yeah um so i don't know if you yeah yeah i don't know if you've heard of that or not before but absolutely it's a way to do it it's just mob grazing the areas very small paddocks and then just moving them and then by the time you get back here that should be repaired and continuously do that so yeah okay that's good absolutely i'm so excited i am so excited brandon thank you so much first thank you for developing this like wow what a huge blessing i can't wait it's been a long time coming for us because we've had to wait for these water tanks right and financially to be able to put them in and then with all the supply issues and all that so now my dreams come true right now it's going to be green and beautiful and sustainable and i i just can't wait so thank you thank you thank you for your help and for creating this fabulous product for us absolutely not a problem at all and i appreciate the opportunity as well you know it goes both ways it's not just a one-way road you know we do this and then we like to help people and as we help people the word spreads and uh and it just gets better and better for everybody you know for the people utilizing it for us and people really start to understand if you ask i mean this easiest way to put it understand really about sustainability about not necessarily always having to have all of these inputs to to have just a beautiful place so absolutely so thank you guys as well we appreciate it and for our viewers go visit rockymountainbioag.com we'll leave a link in the description too but um they've got some really great products and now you can see what it's done for us so thank you so much yeah check it out it's been four weeks and this yard has changed from this desert wasteland to actually something that's well on its way to becoming beautiful and green and highly water efficient so thank you so much brandon from rocky mountain bioag we are just so excited about this and now for the question of the day what are you doing to manage your property and to become more water efficient comment below and thanks for being part of the solution