In this simple organic lawn care manual, let's look first at the basic needs of a lawn, and then at how to meet those needs organically in an economical way.
Compost is a great way to meet the nutritional needs of a lawn. If you have the space for composting and a lot of composting materials, or a deep pocket to purchase mushroom compost and composted cow manure, this is a great way to fertilize your lawn.
Just sprinkle the compost over your lawn periodically, then water it in or let the rain carry it down to the soil. The greatest drawback to fertilizing with compost is that it takes about an inch of compost each year. The benefit is a beautiful lawn! If you choose to use compost, you don't need to read any further in this organic lawn care manual.
Organic Lawn
Maintenance Program
I use
a mulching
blade on my lawnmower to recycle my grass
clippings. Grass is a great source of nutrients.
It contains about 4 percent nitrogen, 1 percent
phosphorus and 2 percent potassium. It also
provides organic matter needed by the soil.
Grass clippings break down easily, and help to
break down thatch buildup in the lawn. This
organic lawn care manual values returning grass
clippings to the soil.
I cut my grass a bit high. This provides shade for the ground to help keep the soil from drying out, and helps to shade out potential weeds. For cool season grasses like Fescue, a good blade height is around 3”. For warm season grasses like Bermuda, around 2” is good.
I try to mow frequently enough so that I don’t trim more than an inch of grass at a time. It's good to sharpen the lawnmower blade about once a month to keep from thrashing the grass instead of cutting it.
Cutting grass at the above lengths is healthier for the grass, and helps the clippings to fall down to the soil, where they will decompose. When grass clippings clump on top of the grass, most of the nutrients are wasted, since carbon and nitrogen are released into the air instead of returning to the soil.
When you don’t water your lawn a lot
(watering washes away nutrients) and you use a
mulching blade on your mower, your lawn only
needs about 100
additional pounds of nitrogen a year,
applied in the fall, plus about 65 additional
pounds of potassium and about 40 pounds of
phosphorus.
Doing a soil test will give you a more accurate
picture of just how much you need. Click here
for a list
of organic fertilizers that provide needed
nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.
No
organic lawn care manual is complete without
mentioning calcium. It is
the single
most important mineral
needed for plant and soil nutrition. When
calcium is flowing in your soil, everything is
flowing. It is important to choose the right
Calcium.
If your soil pH is low (as found in the Southeast USA), then use Calcium Carbonate. Good sources are:
Hard clay soils are generally that way because of too much magnesium. If your soil is low in pH and is clay, you will want to request High Cal. Lime, as it is lower in magnesium, and will help to loosen up the soil.
If your soil pH is high (as found in the Midwest), use calcium sulfate, also known as Gypsum. Calcium Carbonate and Calcium Sulfate are both natural products. A typical application of calcium is one or two 50 lb. bags per 1,000 sq. ft. once or twice a year. It’s a good idea to do a soil test to guide you in how much to apply.
A good
all-in-one source of magnesium, sulfur
and trace minerals is
concentrated
ocean minerals.
It contains a broad spectrum of trace minerals,
including but not limited to, iron, manganese,
zinc, copper, molybdenum, boron, and chlorine.
Applying a gallon per acre on the lawn each year goes a long way to producing a beautiful, well fed lawn. An 8 ounce bottle is enough for 2,500 square feet of lawn.
For a simple, economical organic lawn management program, click here. Are you interested in gardening? Please check out my home page, Healthy Vegetable Gardening.
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