Hi Ada,

Welcome to the forum!

I was able to turn my lawn around from a just okay looking lawn to a showcase lawn in about a year, and while using organic fertilizers. I owe an awful lot to all the nice folks here in the forums of GardenWeb. I've spent a lot of time in the last couple years in the lawn care, lawn mowers, and organic lawn care forums.

The real trick to lawn care is to know the basics. It's the basic cultural practices which are too often overlooked and we tend to look for that special bag of something we can put in the spreader or the bottle of something we can put in the hose end sprayer (at least I know that's what I originally did!)

Here are the lawn care basics:

1) Water deeply and infrequently. Deeply means at least an inch of irrigation in every zone, all at once. The goal is to get moisture down 8 or 10 inches into the soil. Infrequently means monthly during the cool months and no more than weekly during the hottest part of summer. If your grass looks dry before the month/week is up, water longer next time. Deep watering grows deep, drought resistant roots. Infrequent watering allows the top layer of soil to dry completely which kills off many shallow rooted weeds.

2) Mow frequently at the highest setting on your mower. Most grasses are the most dense when mowed tall. Bermuda, centipede, and bent grasses are the most dense when mowed at the lowest setting on your mower. Personally I mow my bermuda @ .625" with a reel mower every three days. Dense grass shades out weeds and uses less water. Dense grass feeds the deep roots you're developing in 1 above. You should not remove more than 1/3 of the grass blade when you mow. So, if you have a tall grass like fescue, you would mow when the grass reaches 6 inches and mow it down to 4 inches. If you have a short grass like bermuda, well, I mow when it gets to around 7/8" to 1" & cut it down to 5/8". You also should always mulch mow, leaving the clippings (don't bag 'em.)
Why?
** Grass clippings are 80% water and decompose quickly releasing nutrients into your soil.
** Mulching provides up to 1/3rd of the lawns yearly fertilizer needs providing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and trace amounts of micronutients.
** Mulching reduces the amount of time you spend bagging and fertilizing.
** Grass clippings donÂt cause thatch. (over watering and over fertilizing do)
** Mulching reduces yard waste by 20-40%.
** Mulching reduces the amount of water your lawn needs.

3) Fertilize regularly. Fertilize several times per year using organic fertilizer. Which fertilizer you use is much less important than numbers 1 and 2 above. But if you have bermuda, I'd suggest soybean meal if you want to stay on the organic side. It's got the most "bang for your buck" due to the high protein content. Personally I apply soybean meal approx once a month during the growing season @ 15lbs/1000sqft. For the 1st application in spring & the last application in the fall, I use alfalfa pellets. Meals/pellets and ground grains are found at feed stores, just look in the yellow pages under feed dealers & call a few. These grains are sold in 50lb bags. I use one 50lb bag to fertilize my small city lot (approx 3800sqft.)

It really isn't any more complicated than that.

Following these simple cultural practices will make your lawn look better than most all the lawns in your neighborhood.

It's what I do & mine is the best in my neighborhood.

For more info on organic lawn care, see the Organic Lawn Care FAQ's and if you have questions, post 'em here or in the organic lawn care forum.

Good day,

Dan

Thanks, Dan! This is great information; I'm grateful to know that people have so much success without spraying on chemicals... My area currently looks like everyone put emerald-green carpet on their lawns with the extent of the fertilizer sprays!

Thanks again!

Ada

Check out okcdan's page. His yard is gorgeous! This is my second year in organic lawncare and have learned a lot. My yard greatly improved in just one year. When we first moved in our lawn was so bad a rep from a lawn chemical company said he'd never seen a yard in such bad shape and suggested we start over from scratch. I'm glad I didn't listen to him and started with the grains. Yes we still battle some weeds but I think each year it'll get better as my soil is improved. Dan is a great source for help especially with Oklahoma bermuda and the other guys on the organic lawncare section. Good luck!

Thanks so much! Wow! What a gorgeous lawn. I'm excited to put this into practice with my lawn...maybe my neighbors will convert in a year or two... :-)

One question, what kind of mower are you using? I've never seen one before...where can you purchase one, and what do I ask for? Our last house was out in the country, so we didn't worry about our lawn and just kept it cut with a riding mower. Can a mulching riding mower do the same job?

Thanks!

Dan uses a reel mower. Maybe he'll check in and let you know where to purchase one and answer more of your questions.

Dan,

I was just thinking about you, I remembered your pics from last year, and your story about transforming your lawn. Do you spray any weed killer on your lawn at all? We always have alot of weeds coming up, including some crab grass. If no weed killer, how do you get rid of the weeds?

Also, last year we had a bunch of big dead patches all over the yard, despite alot of waterings. Thanks Sheri

Hi Ada,

About the mower.... Do you know the size of your lawn? If you have a large lawn & use a riding lawn mower, that's fine. For the first cut of spring when your lawn is greening up, drop it to the lowest possible setting to "scalp" it & then raise it one notch & cut there most of the season. (Bermuda grows most dense when kept short.) Then going into fall you can raise it a notch once or twice more as needed. The more often you can cut, the better looking the lawn will be. If your lawn is rather smallish, a powered reel mower will give you a very good result. Reel mowers are rather expensive however & typically only used by "lawn geeks" (like me) or places like golf courses and some other commercial and/or athletic facilities. The mower I use is a Tru-Cut 20" powered reel & it retails for around $1100.00, but I bought mine used for $550.00 (it was 3 yrs old when I bought it) from Professional Power Equipment in Oklahoma City. If you want more info or would like to research reel mowers, I'd highly recommend going to the Lawn Mower Forum and do a search for "reel mowers".

Hi Sheri,

About the weeds.... The more dense you can keep the lawn, the less weeds you have... that said however, this time of year, while the bermuda is still asleep is when the most weeds tend to sprout. My annual ritual is to spend a Saturday late in March with my Weed Hound and my wheelbarrow & manually pull all the weeds. It's been my intent to completely steer clear of all chemicals. But, this year I'm going to break that, because my back yard has such an infestation of newly sprouted weeds over the last couple weeks, that I'm going to use glyphospate on the entire back yard. As long as the bermuda's still in dormancy, using glyphospate is the most effective method against all the different weeds. (You can use a selective herbicide such as Ortho's Weed-B-Gone, but is isn't as effective & often leaves some of the bad guys you're trying to get rid of.) It's just a matter of choice, do you want to go ahead & pull 'em? Or spray the RoundUp & be done with it? Like Dawn's said many times throughout the Oklahoma Gardening forum, she is 99% organic and only uses glyphospate once in a blue moon. I think it depends on the size of your yard & the density of the weeds you have. It should really only be an issue this time of year, because once the bermuda comes out of dormancy, it really should crowd out any weeds, provided it's managed with good cultural practices as I outlined earlier in this thread.

I hope I answered your questions adequately. If you have any other questions please ask :)

Good day,
Dan

Dan,

It's nice to know that I'm not the only "mostly organic" person who sometimes resorts to using a glyphosate. : ) As I am sure you'd agree, there are times when you just need to go with the MOST EFFECTIVE option, which glyphosate is. And, you know, if there was a comparable organic product that was remotely effective, I'd use it instead, but there is not--no matter what serious organophobes say.

And, as a 99%-organic gardener, let me say it once again, the world will not end if you use a desperately-needed and quite-effective product like Round-Up "once in a blue moon". Well, unless you are trying to become a certified organic producer, but that is a whole different can of worms.

I am so glad you're here to inspire people with your beautiful, organically-maintained lawn. I hope you know that you are having an enormous impact on fellow gardeners with your wonderful advice.

Dawn

Dan or Dawn,

Thank you for answering that question. One last thing I need to consider is, will the glyphosate work on tough weeds such as Crabgrass, and Cheat? I can definitely pull the few weeds that are sprouting now, but the last two years, we had the bare spots and an overabundance of the Crabgrass and cheat, sprouting up throughout the summer. Thanks Sheri

Sheri,

I hope Dan answers this because he is so much better at lawn stuff than I am.

I think that since it is an ongoing problem, I'd use a chemical pre-emergent to try to break the cycle of seeds sprouting. Also, though, you've got to get the lawn healthy enough (following Dan's excellent guide to organic lawn care) and thick enough that there isn't bare soil available in which the seeds can germinate. As long as you have ANY bare ground, something is going to sprout there. (Nature abhors a vacuum and moves quickly to fill it.)

Also, once the grass has sprouted, do whatever you have to do to get rid of it before it sets seed. I think that one healthy grass plant can produce something like tens of thousands to over a hundred thousand seeds. This is especially true of crabgrass. I used to have a problem with crabgrass seed sprouting in the veggie garden, but have eliminated that problem with heavy mulching. It's hard to mulch a lawn though. : )

If the soil is so warm that crabgrass is already sprouting, maybe Dan can recommend a good crabgrass killer. I HATE to keep throwing chemicals out there, but sometimes you just have to go with what works best. Still, remember that weedgrasses are a symptom of a larger problem and you need to address that problem or the weeds will always be there.

Dawn

Dawn,

That is what I feel like I am going to have to do. I am going to try to figure out what is causing the dead patches this summer. I know we have a lot of cutworms. Guess I'll try to do the complete organic lawn thing next year.....

Sheri

Sheri,

What kind of lawn turf do you have? Some lawn grasses have more disease and insect problems than others.

Do the dead patches show up all at one time or more gradually? Does a small patch die and stay the same size, or does the dying area gradually enlarge into a larger dead patch? Can you see the area declining or does it seem to happen very suddenly?

Dawn

Thanks again for all of this great information!

Dan: We've got a fairly large lawn, so I guess we'll try the riding mower that came with the house (!) this year and see what happens. One more question, is this the best time to put down the alfalfa pellets? Do I just get regular pellets from the feed store and use a rolling dispenser? Thanks so much! You're a wealth of great information and it is most appreciated. :-)

Ada

This is some of the greatest information EVER! lol ... is it time, right now, to put something on the lawn? Would I use soybean or alfalfa now?

Thanks
Melissia

Either the soybean meal or the alfalfa pellets will work fine with a normal rotary spreader. Just open the setting all the way wide open. I'll be putting out my first application (of alfalfa pellets) here in a few weeks.... once I see that the lawn is at least 50% back out of dormancy. Then, I'll be putting soybean meal for the rest of the year thoughout the growing season, until fall when the bermuda is about to go back to sleep, when I'll put one more app of alfalfa.

Dan

Dan did you put compost on your yard before you started your organic program? If so what kind did you use? Has anyone ever put down compost using a spreader? I am trying to find a easy way of doing it.

Thanks for the info -- how often during the growing season will u put the soybean meal down?

Also does anyone have a suggestion for what type of grass to plant where our house shades the ground most of the time.

Hey Ramcoach,

Looks to me like you just got done reading the organic lawn care FAQ's. After I read the FAQ's you recently read, I too decided to apply compost. Luckily, it's not something that's required to do often, because it's quite a labor intensive, backbreaking proposition. The best way to do it is to put in the wheelbarrow & take a shovel & broom out there. Throw shovelfuls out there & use the pushbroom to spread it & knock it off the grassleaves and down onto the ground. The goal is to apply approx 1/4" layer. When I did mine 2 years ago, I found compost in 40lb bags at a local big box store for around $2.00 each if I remember right.....it was pricey too! I'd used approx 70 bags!

If I had it to do over, I wouldn't apply the compost....I'd absolutely brew some ACT (aerated compost tea) & apply that. The primary reason for adding the compost is to introduce the microorganisms and the application of compost tea will yield the same result at a far lesser expense and with far less labor involved. That being said, the added organic materials applied when adding compost aren't added when using ACT, but as long as you're using the grains and mulch mow, you'll have chow for your microherd!

You can put together a brewer for around $20.

I'll put a link for tea instructions. Obviously, this is just a recommendation, but you should definitely consider ACT.

Hi Melissia,

how often during the growing season will u put the soybean meal down?

I'm a self confessed lawn geek & I'll apply every 30 days throughout the growing season to keep it looking it's best.

what type of grass to plant where our house shades the ground most of the time

Most of the "shade mixes" in the big box stores should do well for you. They typically are a mixture of a few different kinds of fescues, sometimes with some P Rye. Another more expensive alternative is Shadow Turf by Turfalo which happens to be a strin of buffalo grass, that works very well in shade (just google shadow turf for more info on it.) Keep in mind however that if you use one of the inexpensive "shade mixes" from the big box store, you can seed now, likely get pretty good germination, but then you may loose some or all of it in our summer heat. that's because those grasses are "cool season" grasses & are best sewn in fall, right after the heat of summer is over. Those type of grasses will also remain green all through our mild winters, but suffice it to say you just need to know you can seed now & will likely need to reseed again after the summer.

Good day, Dan

Dan your a stud, I just home my neighbors dont think I am makeing meth in the back yard now. I will definately be brewing some tea.

Dawn,

I guess I will have to look for those answers this summer. I think that the patches just never really turn green, if I am remembering correctly. We have some type of Bermuda grass. I will just have too pay better attention this summer.

We had thick, good grass when we moved into this house, and one summer we sprayed with round up, then didn't follow up with any fertilizer, and the grass went down bigtime that summer. It looked pretty dead, and we ended up with alot of weeds. Every year since then, the grass has never been the same. Sheri

Sheri, I had the same problems. The yard I inherited had some MAJOR dead spots and weeds. So bad that I thought my front yard must have had a line break and the city must have dug it up until I started talking to the neighbors. I sprinkled some cotton burr compost in those dead spots (couldn't afford to compost the entire yard at that time) and started with my grains for fertilizer (CGM, SBM, and alfalfa pellets) and I had NO dead spots in just a matter of a couple of months. I also started putting down compost tea.