Organic Lawn FertilizerWritten by Linda Paquette
Your lawn can be only as good as 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. Although you may want to be 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 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 surface of soil, killing 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 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.
| | Lawn CareWritten by Linda Paquette
If you didn’t have a healthy lawn last summer, your lawn care practices might be at root of problem. Actually, a healthy lawn needs very little care and quite often learning what lawn care tips not to try is best advice you can get. Don’t over water. A healthy lawn needs about an inch of water a week and it’s best if it gets it all at once. You can check this easily by digging a plastic cup into your lawn. Watering deep allows water to sink and gives your grass incentive to grow roots and find water. Saturating your lawn will drown roots and watering too shallow will keep them satisfied with their present depth. Shallow rooted grass is no competition for deep-rooted weeds. Don’t over fertilize. In fact, if you rarely fertilize, both your turf and your topsoil would be better off. Aside from fact that chemical fertilizers aren’t safe for your family and critters that live in your lawn (which are mostly beneficial), chemical fertilizers aren’t safe for your soil. Although they are called “lawn food”, what they really are is “turf candy”. Grass, like any other plant gets its true nourishment from soil. Don’t feed plant… learn how to feed soil through sound organic lawn care methods. Healthy lawn care starts with healthy topsoil.
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