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Organic Lawn

Organic Lawn Care By Hans Dekker

lawn sprinkler Organic lawn care doesn’t mean you sit back and watch as weeds infiltrate your lawn until dandelion lint covers your sidewalk. Nor does it mean that you need to be out on hands and knees from sunrise until sunset, hand-pulling crabgrass and invasive weeds in order to have the lush green carpet of your neighbors’ chemically treated lawns.

What organic lawn care does mean is that with a good lawn care plan, and a minimum of work, you can have an attractive addition to your landscape that is safe for both your family and the environment. In organic lawn care, as in all organic gardening, the foundation for building a great lawn is your soil.

The first step in planning a lawn is to find out what kind of dirt is under your grass. A soil test, from your county extension agent or other lawn care professional, tells you whether it’s sand or clay based, nutrient rich or nitrogen poor, acid or alkaline. From there, you can decide how to improve (amend) it and choose the seed that will give you more green for your dollar.

A basic rule of thumb in organic lawn care is that it’s more important to feed the soil than to fertilize the grass. Nutrient rich soil holds moisture, entices beneficial insects, and maintains a healthy environment for microorganisms that fight disease, deters pests and parasites, and generally help keep your lawn growing and green. Six to ten inches of good top soil is worth its weight in green for your lawn!

A mulching mower solves two problems in organic lawn care with just a few swipes of its blades. First of all, when mowing, always keep a high clip (2 ½ to 3 inches) unless it’s your final mowing in the fall. Short grass clippings and especially fine mulch from a mulching mower will fall in between the cut blades of grass and reach the soil where they quickly decay, adding nitrogen and other nutrients to your soil. Because grass is very efficient in its use of nitrogen, composting your lawn with grass clippings can radically cut down on your fertilization needs. Grass clippings alone can contribute up to two pounds of the two to six pounds per 1000 square feet that your lawn needs to stay healthy.

During dry seasons, an organic lawn care basic is to water your lawn infrequently but deeply. Deep watering forces grass roots down while over-watering allows them to remain near the top. Deeply rooted lawns better compete with invasive weeds. In addition to helping your lawn retain moisture, annual lawn aeration is one organic lawn care method of giving easy growing room to roots and provides circulation for the colonies of critters that tend your soil.

The best time to aerate your lawn is in the spring. Not only will spring aeration break up the compaction of frost and snow accumulated during winter, spring rains also help aeration clumps decay quickly, further enriching your topsoil.

Hans is the owner and one of the editors of The Lawn Mower Guide a Collection of Articles about Lawn Mowers and Lawn Care.

Organic Lawn Fertilizer By Linda Paquette

Your lawn can be only as good as the soil under it. When you use slow release, organic lawn fertilizer, you provide your lawn with nutrition that grows healthy, disease and drought resistant green turf.

chicken on lawn

Although you may want to be the first on your block to have a green carpet in front of your home, healthy grass needs to grow at its own rate. Organic lawn fertilizer feeds your lawn from the soil, allowing it to grow naturally and establish a deep and expansive root system that is necessary to growing strong and healthy turf. Over fertilization actually grows your lawn to death.

Chemical fertilizers basically leave all their nutrients on the surface of the soil, killing the microorganisms that work to keep soil healthy. High nitrogen fertilizers are foliar feeders; they help top-growth, which looks good and deceives you into believing you have a healthy lawn. However, half of all soluble nitrogen leaches out of your soil before it can be absorbed. If all your “lawn food” is on your soil instead of in it, your grass has no need to develop a good root system.

Organic lawn fertilizer breaks down slowly, feeding your lawn as it adds nutrients to the soil. Roots feed from these nutrients and build up a reserve of carbohydrates keeping your lawn healthy and promoting steady growth during times of stress caused by disease or drought. Start with a soil test before you fertilize. Knowing the present condition of your soil helps you develop a solid organic lawn fertilizer plan that addresses your soil’s long term needs by providing a balance of needed nutrients with organic lawn fertilizer and soil amendments. A good organic lawn fertilizer of fine ground compost allows the particles to fall between the blades of grass and reach the crowns or stolons of your grass and its roots. Apply sifted compost with a drop spreader and to an established lawn as a tonic. Top dressing with compost both improves the soil and nourishes your turf.

Remember, a truly healthy lawn takes time to develop. Grass that is growing well doesn’t need fertilizer. Fertilize to supply missing nutrients to the soil using a slow-release or water in-soluble organic lawn fertilizer that releases nutrients at the rate your turf needs them.

Linda is author of The Lawn Care section of Lanwmowers Guide.com