My yard is in the midst of a long overdue landscape makeover. Since we moved into this house over two years ago, there’s been little time to plant. However, I’ve spent a great deal of time prepping the soil with leaf compost and lots of shredded mulch, where appropriate. This explains why nothing is planted at the moment.
I think my friend, Paul Tukey – founder of Safelawns.org, would be pleased. The day I arrived I knew this lawn and garden’s chemical days were over. This picture is a nice testament that you can have a lush lawn if you choose – without the need to douse it with synthetic fertilizers, weed and feed, or anything else synthetic for that matter.
One of the first things I did was to reduce the size of the lawn to make way for more interesting and biodiverse plantings. I keep the small amount of grass that remains looking good with a few simple steps that anyone can do:
First, I keep it mowed at the high end of the scale for my type of grass (fescue) – about 3″. This promotes deep roots, and the taller blades help shade out and out-compete sun-loving weeds. I also water deeply but infrequently, only about once a week at most. By promoting deep roots and conditioning the plants to seek their water source further into the soil, my lawn is naturally more drought-tolerant.
To keep emerging weeds at bay, I used my favorite handheld weeding device, my trusty CobraHead. This tool makes weeding a lot more fun. Of all the hand tools I’ve used for weeding, none compare to this baby. It feels good in my hand, gets the deep tap-rooted weeds all the way out, and is the perfect precision cultivator too. I think I’ve found uses for it the inventor doesn’t even know about yet. I’m so glad I have this tool, and if you don’t yet, you should look into getting one. It’s well worth the small investment!
For fertilizer around my house, compost is king. I use a lot of it, and my lawn is very happy. Speaking of fertilizer, each fall and late winter I also apply corn gluten. It’s primarily marketed as an organic pre-emergent, but it happens to contain nitrogen as a natural component as well. Since I grass cycle, additional nitrogen is added back into the soil every time I mow.
It’s a great feeling knowing that I’m feeding my soil with earth and family-friendly nutrients and seeing such great, sustainable results in my lawn and garden too.
About Joe Lamp'l
Joe Lamp'l is the Host and Executive Producer of the award winning PBS television series Growing A Greener World. Off camera, Joe dedicates his time to promoting sustainability through his popular books, blog, podcast series, and nationally syndicated newspaper columns. Follow Joe on Twitter
In the worst way I want to go organic and wish I could go out with a hoe/tool and pull up the weeds in my lawn but I am swimming in dandelions and other difficult weeds. The yard is close to 1/2 acre and I am also dealing with voles(many). Can someone help me avoid the road of weed killer? I do know that I need fertilizer in the more natural forms aka compost, Corn Gluten, etc The yard has not had any chemicals on it for many years and I know it needs help but it seems soooo overwhelming.
Hi Joe,
Just read your blog about the Goettingen Neighbors Garden installation. You captured the day so perfectly and selected the perfect photos to represent the community. I truly hope you will be able to visit us and our garden agian in the near future. So far, so good! We have a workday coming up this Sunday; lots of maintance to do before the rains. Thanks again for all you did for us.
Mikki Salas, GNG Core Member, San Francisco