Tag Archives: organic lawn care

I have (ahem) composted . . . my lawn

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Well, part of my lawn. It turns out I didn’t order enough compost.

Here it is scattered in its little piles.

Lawn compost step one

Next step: I had to rake it all to spread it — or more precisely, knock it off the leaves of the grass so it won’t kill it, which would have rather defeated the purpose.

lawn compost after raking

About halfway through doing this I realized that I am, as an Englishman might put it, “barking mad.”

Composting a lawn?

There is a reason that uniform, green-all-year-round lawns and eco-awareness don’t mix. They aren’t supposed to.

And since my front lawn is that compost-awkward size — too small for two yards of compost, two big for one — and since I decided during a rare burst of fiscal prudence to err on the side of too little compost when I ordered it on Saturday — I have now a 1/2 composted lawn.

I’m toying with what would be wiser. Leave the other half uncomposted as a test to see if the effort is really worth it?

Or shell out for another load to spread next weekend . . .

We’ll see.

In the meantime, one of the things compost won’t really help of course is weed control (yeah I know, theoretically if your grass is happy it will compete better — but compost nourishes weeds too now, doesn’t it). As I’ve mentioned in another post, I’ve been applying corn gluten in the spring; it inhibits seed germination and so over time will cut down on weeds. Some weeds — if they’re annuals or short-lived perennials. Any perennial that lives on like grass, otoh, will be unaffected by corn gluten — and speaking of the English, one of the weeds I have the most problem with, Glechoma hederacea, is a non-native plant brought over here by someone on that side of the pond.

Gil over the ground

I suspect the English. Wikipedia mentions an English herbalist, John Gerard, who said a brew of it cures tinnitus, and that

Glechoma was also widely used by the Saxons in brewing beer as flavoring, clarification, and preservative, before the introduction of hops for these purposes; thus the brewing-related names, Alehoof, Tunhoof, and Gill-over-the-ground.

Some descriptions say it smells minty but that’s only one aspect of its odor. Excuse me, “odour.” Its smell is unlike anything else — strong, bitter, medicine-y.

It’s happy in sun and shade, doesn’t mind being cut low, is happy to grow right over top your grass if you cut it high. It loves to take over the edges of things — the edge of a garden, the edge of the driveway, the edge of a new patch of lawn you’ve reseeded for some reason.

The good news. Wikipedia and this article both say you can get rid of it by using Borax, which is relatively non-toxic.

I may give that a try . . .

On the other hand, I have tinnitus . . . hmmm . . .

Look, ma, no dandylions

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Lawn

Actually there are a handful — you may be able to make them out toward the top of the photo.

But. There are far fewer than there were last year, which is a reason to celebrate, because this marks the one-year anniversary of my starting a program of organic broadleaf control.

My secret weapon is corn gluten, a byproduct of cornstarch production that acts as a natural pre-emergent herbicide — it inhibits root growth of newly sprouted seeds. (It’s also a 10-0-0 slow release fertilizer.) (I buy it at Bristol’s farm market in Victor.)

In addition to the corn gluten, I set my mower blades pretty high (three inches). The idea is that taller grass is healthier grass — the root system becomes stronger — and healthier grass is able to crowd out other plants. Taller grass also helps the earth retain moisture and prevents light from reaching any weed seeds, which prevents them from germinating. It looks okay, too — when it’s freshly cut it’s nice and neat; you can’t really tell it’s being cut longer unless you walk across it. (Don’t use the photo as the guide on that point — I haven’t mowed yet, this spring.) And it doesn’t mean I have to cut more often, either — leaving it longer doesn’t make it grow faster.

My lawn is a perfect lab for this experiment, since my property’s previous owner never did anything but mow, and until last year, I didn’t either. So that was 15, maybe 20 years of laissez-faire lawn care, plenty of time to establish a nice colony of broadleaf plants: ground ivy, white clover, violets, broad leaf plaintain, speedwell, dandelion, purslane, wild lettuce, dock.

In the photo, you can see clover in the foreground. The lighter-color patches are speedwell, probably slender speedwell, Veronica filiformis. It’s a low-growing plant that tends to spread out in mats. It is more noticeable now than it will be later, because it’s in its first flush of spring growth. Plus the patches are smaller this year than before.

Which means next year they’ll be smaller yet. Or who knows? Gone completely. We”ll see.

What I’m doing, at this point, is waiting out the perennials. Dandelions, for instance, can live five years or so. I have to wait until the established plants have passed on before my lawn will be pretty much dandelion-free.

Speedwell is a nice little plant, actually, with pretty, delicate little flowers. I also like dandelions. But I’m proving a point to anyone in my neighborhood (or elsewhere, for that matter) who thinks they need to hire chemical companies to spray horrible-smelling, toxic, expensive chemicals on their grass.

Corn gluten isn’t outrageously expensive, either. A $30 bag is plenty to treat my front yard. (I don’t bother with the back yard.) I’ve only treated it in the spring although I’ve read somewhere that a second, late summer application is helpful since some weeds germinate in the fall.

You’ll pay more to have an organic lawn care company care for your lawn than a conventional lawn care company, of course.

But if you’re willing to spread the stuff yourself, it’s not a budget-breaker.

Here’s an Organic Gardening magazine article on organic lawn care.

Here’s another, although this one kind of plays up the expense and difficulty. It’s not that complicated, really. I suppose some lawns might be more trouble, if the soil was deficient in specific nutrients or something. But in my case, if I decided to do more, like spread compost, it would be just for the sake of puttering, not because the lawn really seems to need it.

I’ll post another pic after I mow.

Update: and then came the compost …