[Shadow1953]

Hello fellow feline friends;

We currently tend to four indoor only cats and have been adopted by an family of three (two boys and a girl) and another one who is unrelated all of whom live on the patio, in the storage shed, and in the disconnected laundry room. They have two friends who frequent the place in the evenings for dinner and coffee a few nights a week.

I live in Phoenix, AZ. It has been some years since my grass has died out and my yard turned to dirt. It needs more than just re-seeding and watering to get green again. That's not the issue. I recently had someone here to neaten up the yard, whack the weeds, etc. and he'd mentioned some parts of the 'yard' were 'pretty strong'. He advised against just watering it as it would just bring out the odor.

Basically my house is on a three-quarter acre litter box. Is there anything I could/should do to maintain some sort of detox to the soil? Our water is pretty bad, and I suspect that over my 25 years of being here, the more I watered, the more I 'poisoned' the ground with limey water.

Any advice would be a-purr-ciated.

Thanx.

 

[jusjim]

I don't suppose this is going to be much help, but....

The odor caused by watering is probably the odor of decay caused by bacteria. Bacteria only thrive, so I understand, where there is enough moisture. It's nature's way of keeping the world clean.

 

[shan841]

hmmm... this makes me think of my fishtank, and the nitrogen cycle. If there is no moisture or plants, the bacteria cannot live and perform their natural cycle that breaks down ammonia(ammonia->nitrites->nitrates). Seems to me the only way to fix this problem would be to get your grass growing again. Like you said, your yard is essentially a giant litterbox, and the ammonia is building up because there are no bacteria present to naturally "clean" your yard. Here is a little diagram that explains it if you are not familiar with the notrogen cycle:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...trogen_Cycle.svg/320px-Nitrogen_Cycle.svg.png

it would be worth talking to someone experienced in lawn care in you area that may have dealt with this issue before, maybe they sell some kind of ammonia "remover/neutralizer" that is safe to use in your yard, but without the healthy bacteria you would have to continue to treat with such a product. Not watering won't make the problem go away, and I would imagine that it will just continue to build and get worse.

Sorry if this isnt much help, just wanted to put my two sense in, as this sciencey-type stuff is very interesting to me Keep us updated!