Organic Lawn CareWritten by Hans Dekker
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 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 environment. In organic lawn care, as in all organic gardening, 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 seed that will give you more green for your colorful US dollar. A basic rule of thumb in organic lawn care is that it’s more important to feed soil than to fertilize 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!
| | Lawn Care TipsWritten by Hans Dekker
What type of lawn care tips work best for you depends on time and money you decide to put into your lawn. If your lawn is your hobby, you can spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of time on it. On other side of fence, if what you want is a low-maintenance green expanse that you can enjoy with family and friends, you’ve come to right page!The best lawn care tip you can get is to start with a solid plan. 1.Do you need to plant grass? Do some research on best seed for your area, where to buy it cheap, and when it’s available. Depending on where you live, you’ll plant either cool season or warm season grass. Cool season grass, planted in northern areas, is usually best planted in early fall, but if you missed planting then, plant it in spring when soil temperatures reach 50 F. Warm season grass needs soil temps of 70F to thrive and is choice for southern plantings. Don’t make mistake of thinking you can plant warm season grass in upper Midwest. Warm season grasses are bred to thrive in southern climates and are not winter hardy in north. 2.Of course, you’ll keep new grass plantings moist, but once grass reaches a height of three inches, water it deeply once a week. A healthy lawn needs about an inch of water a week. When watering, remember to consider recent rainfalls. Shallow watering techniques keep grass from sinking deep roots that your lawn needs to compete with deep-rooted weeds.
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