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Don’t Forget Your Lawn!

Your flower beds are bursting with color, your vegetable garden is producing bountiful food for your table, and your trees are proudly swaying in the wind. Your grass? Well, you mow it, but it isn’t looking too good.

As gardeners, we tend to focus most of our energy on our plants, shrubs and vegetable gardens. But for most of us, the lawn makes up the vast majority of our yard. Fortunately, grass is hardy and low maintenance, which is why it is the single most popular covering for your ground. However, that doesn’t mean you can set and forget it, with a trim every now and then.

Get to Know Your Grass

Grass grows at its optimum growth rate in the first 6 weeks of spring. Make sure that you provide water, fertilization and mowing. Talking about fertilization, most people may not know that the best time to apply it is not during spring, but during the late fall. This is because fertilizing in the spring stimulates the top growth too much. With lots of spring showers, it will create thin-skinned grass which will be highly vulnerable to disease.

Get to Know Your Soil pH

Healthy soil means a healthy, vigorous lawn. If your lawn is deteriorating and weeds are taking over, it could mean that your soil is out of whack. A pH of 6.5 to 7, or neutral, is what you are striving for. Pine needles are a major cause of increasing soil acidity, killing the grass around pine trees. Clean up needles regularly to help prevent acidity.

To test, or when planting a new lawn, get a few patches of dry soil from different areas of your garden and put them through a soil test to determine the level of pH. Most local garden centers will provide such services. It is recommended that you ascertain the type of grass you wish to plant on the collected samples of soil because certain grasses will grow better at certain pH levels.

Learn to Mow All Over Again

Before you cut your grass for the first time in the spring, try changing the height of cut on your mower blade so that the grass is cut at 3″, giving your grass a nice, high cut. You don’t want to overcut your grass as the major food source lies in the tip, and removing it simply means more food will be used to grow new tips and less food for root development.

Cut your grass less, and leave it slightly higher. The lower your grass is cut, the faster it will grow back, using lots of energy to do so. Higher grass means greater shade beneath, discouraging weeds and allowing the soil to retain more moisture. Sure, it won’t look like the neat suburban golf course-look you may be used to, but everybody is starting to realize how wasteful and unsustainable a low-cut and often-watered green lawn is.

Mulch, mulch, mulch! One of the best fertilizers for your grass is … grass. Buy a lawn mulcher mower to chew up and grind back out the grass clippings. They will mix into the soil, renewing it. This way, you need less chemical fertilizer and save landfill space. Some of the basic gardening techniques for organic lawn care is cutting high, keeping soil pH healthy, and mulching.

Also, make sure the blade is sharp. Trimming your grass with a blunt and unmanaged blade will cause mangled grass cuts, causing massive water loss in the plant and making your grass more vulnerable to diseases. Most likely, you’ll end up with a brown looking lawn. Always try to set a fixed schedule to sharpen your mowing blade from time to time, perhaps every spring.

Strong Healthy Grass Means Fewer Problems

Fertilize every fall with a lawn fertilizer. If you’re thinking of chemical-free, look for a protein-based natural fertilizer to use. Cattle or chicken feed, crushed dog food, grass clippings and seaweed are good examples. If you’re mulching, your lawn is already getting a good amount of fertilizer! If you’re looking for a liquid organic lawn fertilizer, spraying nutrient-rich compost tea is one great idea.

Do not panic when you see weeds start growing in your lawn. Try to identify what weeds are growing and learn what harm they will inflict on your current healthy lawn. The most common weed you should pay attention to is crabgrass, which is very well known as an “annual-weed.” It generally reappears every year if your lawn has a clear history of crabgrass.

Many weeds thrive at pH levels different than what your grass thrives at. For instance, dandelions love a pH level of about 7.5. Sprinkle some sulfur into the soil to rebalance the levels.

If your lawn is healthy (which means your soil is healthy and rich), it will crowd out weeds and be more resistant to pests and disease. Keep pesticides and herbicides to a minimum. While chemicals offer a short-term solution, it often interferes and damages microorganisms in the long run that contributes to healthy soil.

Source: Goorganicgardening.com, a blog on organic gardening tips, composting and having fun out in the yard.

Starting Your Organic Garden From Seed

“Sow dry and plant wet.” This rule of green thumb is common sense when planning to plant seeds in your garden. Sowing from seed is much cheaper than buying and transplanting young plants from a garden center. However, if you live in a more northern climate, you will likely have to grow your seeds indoors first, then plant after the threat of frost is well over. Tomatoes are one example, as they need a long growing season.

Sowing Your Seeds Indoors

To sow indoors, you will need a clean pot or seed tray containing a sterile seed starting mix. A good organic soil mix would be vermiculite or perlite mixed with good compost.

Fill the container to just below the rim and gently press the soil mix around the edges to remove any air pockets. Sow your seeds thinly on the surface of the soil, or check instructions on your seed package for sowing depth. Tap them directly from the seed packet or from a folded piece of paper.

If the seeds you are sowing are very small and fine, then before sowing, mix in a small quantity of fine sand so you can distribute them more evenly into the soil. Large seed or pelleted seeds can be sown straight into individual pots or containers.

Water your seeds lightly as soon as they are sown by placing the trays in tepid water until the soil is moist – this does not disturb them. To maintain even humidity, you can cover the trays or pots with a sheet of glass or clear plastic. If the seeds require darkness to germinate, then place a sheet of newspaper on it, until the seeds begin to sprout.

Keep your seed trays shaded and the soil mix moist. When the first shoots emerge, remove any covers.

Planting Seeds Directly In Your Garden

Wait for a dry spell before sowing your seeds outdoors. Don’t plant seeds in very wet conditions, or you may lose many to mold and fungus. Only give enough water to coax them to germinate. Always firm the soil around the seeds, either by treading on it or firming it with the back of your hand. If seeds are sown in a loose growing medium, cold, dry air can shrivel or dry them as they begin to germinate.

For best results, sow seeds into a bed of well–cultivated and finely raked soil.

Transplanting Your Seedling Outdoors

When the threat of frost is well past, it is time to plant your seedlings outdoors. Wait until your young plants have at least three pairs of leaves on them. Then plant them into weed-free, crumbly soil, handling each one as little as possible. Do this in wet weather so the roots have the best chance of taking hold. Don’t worry if they look rather sad for a few days, just keep the soil damp.

The optimum time to plant is just after a good rainfall, and when the next few days are supposed to have a mixture of cloud and rain. If you know a lot about building an organic garden, you know that the soil means everything. Rich organic compost and manure mixed into your soil will bring about stronger and healthier plants.

When to plant depends on your soil and situation, but think of the old English saying – ” If you can sit on the ground with your trousers down, then you can sow your seeds.” Happy planting!

Contributed by Goorganicgardening.com. Click here to read all about organic gardening, composting, and seed sowing.