Posted by Grow your lawn the organic way in 5 easy steps, so you will have a green, neat, clean, and healthy lawn. Follow these tips.
Having a lush, green lawn is a dream for many homeowners, but achieving it without the use of harmful chemicals is becoming increasingly important.
That’s where organic lawn care comes in! By following five simple steps, you can grow your lawn the organic way, keeping it healthy and beautiful while also protecting the environment.
Organic lawn care focuses on natural methods that promote soil health, biodiversity, and sustainability, making it a responsible choice for both your family and the planet.
Let’s explore these five easy steps to grow your lawn organically and create a safe and sustainable outdoor space for you and your loved ones to enjoy.
It’s really not hard at all to grow and maintain an organic lawn. Over the past few decades, it’s become so normal to use a lot of man-made fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides that everyone seems to have forgotten that you don’t need all these chemicals to achieve a beautiful, green lawn.
As long as you keep the grass healthy it will stand up to weeds and insects. It’s only the most persistent of weeds that can infiltrate a luxuriant, sturdy lawn with deep roots.
Here are five steps to getting the gorgeous, lush organic lawn you’ve been dreaming of:
Have your soil tested
Lawns require exactly the right pH level and nutritional mix if they’re to look their best. For an accurate reading on the status of the soil, you’ll need to get it tested at a professional facility such as your local country cooperative extension service.
The lab results will tell you the pH and chemical makeup of the soil, and give you instructions for improving its condition. The lawn will do best when the pH value is between six and seven.
To fix a pH imbalance, you should feed the lawn with either sulfur or lime, depending on the test result. Make sure you pay attention to the nutritional advice you receive too.
If you add too much of any particular nutrient it will promote weed growth, to the detriment of the turf.
Don’t be tempted to throw your money away on additives and supplements before you’ve had the soil tested: you can actually do more harm than good if you use the wrong products.
Spring and fall: use compost as a topdressing
All lawns should be top-dressed with compost every six months or so, no matter what the soil test reveals. Compost gives the soil vital trace minerals and nutrients, and supplies microbes that work to make the soil healthier and better able to retain water.
Compost also attracts earthworms, which burrow through the soil to reach it. This improves the soil by aerating it, making it more productive and increasing worm colonies.
Spread a roughly quarter-inch layer of compost over the lawn and rake it out evenly. This will do the job without suffocating the turf.
How will you know how much compost to buy? Reckon on one cubic foot (0.05 cubic yards) per 100 square feet of grass.
Take your total lawn area (length x width) in square feet, and divide by 100 to get the number of cubic feet you need. For cubic yards, you need to multiply that number by 0.037 (or divide by 27).
Mow the lawn high
This means leaving the grass 2.5 to 3 inches in length. The first advantage of mowing high is that tall grass blades provide shade for the soil and make it harder for weeds to sprout.
Secondly, the shade prevents the sun from heating and drying the soil too much and cuts the water requirements. Thirdly, the taller the grass is, the larger it is capacity to photosynthesize.
Each blade of grass absorbs energy from the sun in accordance with its surface area and then turns it into food.
You can also feed your lawn by using a mulching mower, which chews up the grass clippings and deposits them back onto the grass as you go along.
As the clippings break down, they will supply a steady, modest amount of nitrogen to the lawn while simultaneously protecting the soil from heat and moisture loss.
Water generously but not too often
Did you know that the largest center of water wastage in a typical household is the lawn? Your lawn needs about an inch of water a week during the growing season, whether from rainfall or a sprinkler.
It’s important to let your lawn dry out after each watering. There are two reasons for this. First of all, if the lawn is watered so often that it remains wet most of the time the roots will only grow in the top inch or two of soil.
Then, if there’s a drought, the lawn can’t cope. Secondly, in contrast to healthy grass, weeds almost invariably have shallow roots. Therefore if you keep your lawn too wet, you’re providing a great environment for weeds.
You can stick a rain gauge in the ground to measure the quantity of water the grass is getting. Alternatively, you could just place a can or cup on the lawn while you run the sprinklers, and wait until the water in it is an inch in depth.
Note that the best time to water is in the early morning. The water is best absorbed at this time of day, and it also allows the lawn to dry properly before the end of the day.
If the grass remains damp overnight, the fungus can start growing, and that can be difficult to remove.
Don’t worry too much about weeds
The odd weed here or there is not going to hurt your lawn, and might even do it some good. While a yard full of dandelions might not look so good, clover, for instance, funnels nitrogen from the air down to the roots and into the soil. It also attracts honeybees and other useful insect species.
If the weeds do start encroaching on your lawn there are many effective, organic ways to keep them under control. Of course, you can just pull or dig them out whenever they appear.
This applies particularly to fast-growing species such as dandelions, which can rapidly take over a lawn. Another method is to spread a thin layer of corn gluten meal over the turf in the springtime when the forsythias are blooming.
Corn gluten meal is an organic pre-emergent herbicide that helps to curb the growth of weeds like crabgrass and dandelions.
You might have to use it for a couple of years before you see the full effect, though. A third suggestion for organic weed control is to let the autumn leaves remain on the grass, and then go over them with the mower a couple of times to reduce them to mulch.
Michigan State University recently released a study that found that by letting chopped-up leaves (particularly maple) decompose on the lawn in the fall, you help prevent dandelions from germinating the next year.
So you can see that there’s nothing very difficult or expensive about caring for your lawn the organic way without using any chemicals or other artificial additives.
You simply need to be observant and swap some of your old lawn care routines for a more environmentally-friendly approach, and you’ll be able to enjoy a wonderful organic lawn before you know it.