Peak Pro Outdoor Services

06/10/2024

06/08/2024

One common theme over the many years I have been on this board is this holy crusade against herbicides while promoting something far worse, which is salt or epsom salt mixed with soap and or vinegar as a benign, non-chemical w**d killer. Now, back to high school chemistry, if you can remember that far back.... salt, epsom salt, vinegar, and dish soap are all.... chemicals!

Putting any kind of salt down on our salty soil will absolutely kill the w**ds, along with all the soil biome (literally every microorganism), all the worms, all the mycorrhizae, etc. And not just for a day or a week. Salt of any kind can poison soil for years or even decades. When it dissolves and runs off, it poisons streams too (the lower Arkansas is so salty these days it can barely support agriculture). It's almost impossible to get rid of it once you put it down -- water it in, it will simply wick back to the surface as the soil dries. Vinegar also pH shocks the soil and will kill much soil life, although in the case of vinegar, the effects are not as permanent.

I'm not here to push herbicides on those who don't use them, but I can tell you that science says glyphosate breaks down in soil after a few weeks to a few months, and does not translocate well, so it tends to stay put where it is applied. I say this to point out that sometimes, falling for "meme science" can lead us to make worse decisions. The ideal option is always to pull or dig. But if you have a field full of invasive thistle and the state or county tells you to kill them, hand pulling 5 acres is not realistic for most.

Glyphosate IS overused (it is sprayed on your cereal crops to kill them for faster harvest) and often misused. Like so many other things, it can cause cancer if not handled correctly. But smoking causes cancer on a much more regular basis and tons of y'all smoke, and alcohol is a potent carcinogen that many imbibe daily. Just pointing out that fanaticism is the enemy of logic and reason. So is absolutism. The truth is often the grey area in between.

If you need to get rids of w**ds, your options are to pull them, or use some sort of chemical to get rid of them. Your choices to make, right? You get to make whichever choice works best for you -- but here's the kicker.... so does everyone else!

We may now begin the wringing of hands and angry outbursts directed at me. I'd say burn me in effigy as well, I'm told it's a very refreshing thing to do. ;) But seriously -- do whatever but please, ffs, do not put salt on your soil. That is all.

06/05/2024

Irrigation leaks happen in a lot of ways, but they all have something in common.... they waste our precious water resource. And of course, they waste $$ as well.

Most irrigation leaks will have considerable volume and pressure behind them, and can lose a HUGE amount of water in a very short time.

This is something I recently located and serviced at an apartment residence. When pressurizing the system, I noticed a stream of water running down the sidewalk. Not huge but noticeable. I dug it out, it immediately filled with water. Had to let it dry to work on it. When dry, the hole through the soil blasted by the high pressure leak was hard to miss. Dug it out and located the leak, a large split in a 1" line crushed by tree roots. The leak had been there so long it had actually drowned and rotted the old roots, they disintegrated in my hand.

Over its life, this leak could have wasted 50k, or even 100k gallons of water, or more. It had been there a long time.

Water is precious and expensive here. Repair those irrigation leaks!

05/24/2024

W**d barrier, in my experience usually ends up poorly under mulch. This piece of fabric that is rolled up a bit was buried under 3" of mulch and had plentiful w**ds and suckers living the good life on top of that fabric.

You can see the tip of the next row of fabric, which is also loaded with decayed mulch, and w**ds.

Mulch on top of fabric breaks down and composts slowly, becoming more hospitable to w**ds each passing year. W**d barrier only prevents suckers and such from re-emerging through the fabric. It also can help hold hillsides in place. But one thing it does not do is stop w**ds growing from above, which is most of them.

Just my $.02 as a guy who has dug up and thrown away miles of this stuff over the years.

05/24/2024

One of the worst "I can fix it myself without expensive parts" sprinkler installations I have ever seen, and I have seen many, many systems.

This was on the far side of a long crawlspace. It had been leaking for some time, so I had to crawl through an inch of water to get to it. There is no backflow preventer and no outside anything. You would need to use an RPZA in this application to keep the household water separated from water already in the lines. These two "anti-siphon" valves connected to live water, connected to some homebrew outdoor sprinklers.... nope. Worst conceivable installation. And it failed catastrophically, probably leaked thousands of gallons over part of a week until we could get over to shut it off. This device didn't just break and fail, it also would have been allowing water from the irrigation back into the household water. Yuck.

These "anti-siphon" valves are not OK to use as backflow prevention. Just, no. And for them to work at all (these aren't meant for municipal water), they would need to be a foot and a half or more higher than any zone's highest head, but they are in fact the lowest point of this whole system. And really, it's best to put valves outside of the envelope of the house, if they leak or break they can spew some serious water.

I've known plenty of homeowners who have built functioning, safe symptoms. This not one of them. :)

When you design a system, make sure it is accessible, build it correctly, make sure all the low points can be drained, and of course, don't give yourself a waterborne bacterial disease by siphoning sprinkler water back into household water.

04/13/2024

Quick bit about irrigation.....

In the last few weeks, I have encountered a system with no backflow preventer, using only valves with individual backflow preventers (not effective or safe), a system where the previous homeowner cut the backflow preventer out completely and replaced it with a straight section of pipe, and a home where at some point the original backflow preventer was replaced with a simple device not meant for residential irrigation systems.

Backflow prevention is very important. If your system does not have a working, appropriate backflow prevention device, you are at risk for not only drinking contaminated water in your own home, but also for contaminating water for your neighbors as well.

At a minimum, an irrigation system should have a pressure vacuum breaker as a backflow prevention device, and it should be mounted at least 12" above the highest sprinkler head, although 2' is safer. These devices are acceptable for most homes.

If your yard has a lot of slope and you cannot mount a pressure vacuum breaker high enough to accomplish a minimum of 12" above highest head, or if you use fertilizer injectors in your system, or your system is in some other way higher risk, you will need to use a reduced pressure zone assembly device. These are pricier but they provide the highest level of protection against backflow and contamination.

Any backflow device needs to be drained and opened at the end of the season, to prevent frost damage.

It's a good idea to have them tested periodically. In most other municipalities, testing is a requirement.

Questions? Drop me a line. Pics help too if your question is very specific.

02/28/2024

http://www.peak-pro.com/land-blog/2024/2/28/wildfire-in-the-west

My fire mitigation season will wind down soon, while we do some as needed or required in spring and summer and fall as well, dormant season is the best, as we are least likely to attract pine beetles.

Fire is very misunderstood. Read the blog, we'll be talking more about the science of fire in the West throughout the year.

All this recent and ongoing wildfire in the news is a good chance to remind everyone that wildfire is a natural part of the Western landscape, and has always been an essentially self-managing process, until human interference, and a lack of science, caused a century of misguided fire suppression.

02/14/2024

http://www.peak-pro.com/land-blog/2024/2/13/xeric-plant-spotlight-

Need a tough, western native, xeric shrub for hot, dry, difficult areas? A go-to of ours in for these difficult, full-sun areas is a native of the West Slope/Colorado Plateau known as “Fernbush” (Chamaebatiaria millefolium). Fernbush handles heat and low desert sun but is cold-hardy to Zone 4b. ...

02/08/2024

Can you just throw native or wildflower seed down and start a meadow?

A common question we get asked…. “Can I just toss some native grass seed/wildflower seed/meadow seed to fix this area of my property that is bare or only grows w**ds? The answer, sadly, is “no”. At least not usually. For every random success of an unprepared area, there are many, many failur...