NATURAL LAWN CARE
There are a few great products to switch your lawn from a chemical dependent one to a self sustaining, healthy natural lawn. You are going to love this part of organic gardening. You can put your weekly lawn schedule of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and toxic fertilizer applications into the compost bin folks.
We discovered the way to grow a great green lawn without putting harmful chemical sprays, dusts & granules all over it quite by accident. Growing up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, our weekend life was all about the lawn, the neighbors lawn, the weeds in the lawn and the lawn. Cutting it, raking up the clippings and spreading the various toxic stuff all over it to kill the weeds, eliminate the bugs and make the grass green. So when we grew up and bought a house & yard of our own, naturally, we just continued the tried & true practices of our lawn obsessed culture.
About 20 years ago, we started a family of our own, 3 kids in 4 years. Boy were we EVER BUSY. Too tired and frazzled by the daily chaos of child rearing, we let the list of things to do to the lawn lapse. We had no time for raking, spreading and spraying our lawn and no money for weed control, fertilizer or bug control products. We thought our lawn would just curl up and die.
BUT IT DID NOT!
The natural population of soil organisms returned to enrich the soil. The un-raked grass clippings turned into nutrient rich soil. The weeds did not take over, but rather a lovely variety of natural plants began to grow in our lawn, flourishing in the mowed grass and even flowering from time to time. The grass became GREENER as it became healthier, its' roots deeper and more able to withstand drought and root chewing grubs. It soon became quite clear to us that all those years of toiling over our patch of lawn back in Toronto were a complete waste of time & money. Your lawn will actually be twice as nice if just left alone.
In rainy acid areas like here on the Wet Coast of BC, we still add a bag of dolomite lime every 3 years or so, just to keep the ph from getting too low for grass. Other than that, we do not water, fertilize or use weed, moss, disease or insect controls on our lawns ever. The 2-3 bags of lime cost about $3.00 each.
In the beginning, we did spread about an inch of compost on our lawn just one time, using the same spreader we had once put the toxic dusty chemical fertilizers & weed 'n' feed products. Another change we made was to buy a mulching lawn mower to chop up the grass clippings as it mows, so the cut pieces of grass will almost overnight become fertile soil.
As you can see in the photo of our lawn, it is gorgeous. Most people, when they see it can not believe we do nothing to make it that way. Nature is the very best gardener when it comes to the grass family of plants.
There are just a couple of products for you to buy for organic lawn gardening. You will want to get a hold of some organic fertilzer and organic matter, like compost just to kick off the new green era for your lawn. If you have been using traditional lawn care methods, your soil will be depleted of micro organisms, micro & macro nutrients and organic matter. The whole natural look of your lawn will happen almost overnight once you have restored these crucial elements to the soil.
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