I was sitting in the sunroom with Layne this morning enjoying a cup of coffee, looking out at the peaceful backyard and conjuring up ideas for today’s blog post when I realized that I should share how we keep our lawn green. Last year, we made the decision to go the organic route after visiting a local organic garden and learning more about organic landscaping. We’re lucky enough to live just 10 minutes from Marvin’s Organic Gardens, voted Cincinnati’s Best 2011 Green-Oriented Business. {You may recall this is where we dropped off our live Christmas tree back in the winter to be ground into mulch.} After learning that fertilizer is good for your lawn but potentially bad for your water supply, we bought our first bag of organic fertilizer and haven’t looked back.
Marvin’s supplied us with a little cheat sheet that tells us which fertilizer to apply when. In the summer we apply the 8-3-3 fertilizer once or twice. One bag costs $35 and provides 2 applications. True to organic form, the fertilizer contains soluble {quicker releasing} and insoluble {slower releasing} nitrogen to help avoid over-fertilization which can lead to harmful run off.
The slower releasing nitrogen also helps our yard to remain healthy during drought periods. In general, this fertilizer helps our yard grow green and strong, independent of weekly treatments and watering…meaning less money and less waste. Good for us and good for the environment. As you can imagine, the manure, blood meal and kelp ingredients lend a certain natural odor to the fertilizer. Let’s just say it doesn’t smell like roses. Once applied, the fertilizer is so dispersed that it’s not like our yard stinks…it’s just when you open up and pour that bag into the spreader that you have to hold your breath.
I happened to snap a shot of the fertilizer just before the spreader was empty the other day while I was fertilizing the yard.
It looks like fish food to me. We haven’t had our soil tested or anything since we started using the organic fertilizer about a year ago, but I do think it’s helping our yard to become more resilient, healthier and less reliant on treatments. While many of our neighbors’ yards were struck by a widespread fungal disease {causing large bare, brown spots} last year during late summer/early fall, our yard continued to remain green and vibrant. No diseased areas – even with fungal diseases in both neighbors’ yards immediately adjacent to our yard on either side. Our one neighbor told us, “I don’t know what you’re doing to your yard, but keep doing it. It looks great.” Both neighbors are relying on twice weekly professional chemical treatments to try and rid their yards of disease this summer. I don’t know what it’s costing them but I’m pretty sure it’s more expensive than $35. Plus, the guy that comes out to spray their lawns always wears long pants, boots and full-arm rubber gloves so the stuff he’s spraying can’t be good. I’d love to tell them about Marvin’s without seeming too pushy but I haven’t found a way to do it yet.
So, that’s how we keep our grass green in a green way. I’ve also used Marvin’s fertilizer to fertilize the plants in our mulch beds too. I just sprinkle a little fertilizer on the mulch around the base of each plant annually to help them grow oh-so-lush.
Have you ever used organic treatments for your yard or plants? I’d love to start my own compost and use it to fertilize. Any tips?
images: Dana Miller for House*Tweaking
DIY