...because home doesn't happen overnight.

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

17 Comments

This is a great topic! We also want to start composting but baby steps…our yard is currently in a state of total rototillation…

-Teresa

29.June.2011

Hi Dana!
Love your Marvin’s Gardens shout out! I work at the Cincinnati Zoo and we recently started shipping all organic waste (a lot of poo! :) to Marvin’s to be turned into compost. Once it’s ready, it will be sold as ‘Zoo Doo’ manure and fertilizer with a portion of the proceeds being donated back to the Zoo. We love Marvin’s!

29.June.2011

Your yard looks great, and it’s wonderful to know that you’re going the organic route to keep it that way… as for your neighbors, at least one has already broached the topic with you, so I don’t think it would be at all out of line or preachy for you to recommend your organic fertilizer – especially when you tell them the price!! You’d be doing them, yourself, and the earth a favor.

Apartment Therapy/ReNest has some good DIY compost bins you can build, and there are lots of books on the topic to be had!

Your yard looks great!

I’m afraid we don’t have much in the way of actual grass, so we’re going the “if it’s green, mow it flat” route for now. I’d love to plant something hardy & drought resistant and go the organic route one day.

29.June.2011

I use Milorganite on my lawn and it works great. Though I just have a tiny city lot.. I also have composted my whole life. I use the compost on my community garden plot, as well in my container gardens. I cannot not compost. It’s an obsession of mine I guess. I feel like throwing away any food or veggie scrap, coffee ground, egg shell, etc. is like stealing from the earth. I have always been that person that will save my orange peels or apple core from lunch, taking it home with me to compost. Luckily I started some worm bins in my elementary classroom so I now don’t have to bring my food wastes home with me. Plus the 6-9 year olds I teach LOVE the worms– feeding or watering the worms is a special reward for the children!

Thanks for sharing your product. Your grass looks awesome!!! One question though, does it smell funny? And if yes, does the smell stick around for days? Thanks!!! :-)

29.June.2011

Forget about the garbage disposal in your new kitchen and start composting. It is a great way to reuse what you would through away and the kids get a kick out of it:)

29.June.2011

This makes me wish I had a lawn! I guess the grass is always greener on the other side (bad pun intended).

29.June.2011

Jen – Like I said, the fertilizer itself does smell. But once spread out all over the yard, there’s no foul odor.

29.June.2011

Allison – That’s so great to know that the Cincy Zoo is supporting green efforts along with Marvin’s. Zoo Poo?! I love it! Can’t wait to try it.

29.June.2011

We have never used any type of fertilizer, organic or otherwise. My husband mows the weeds in the lawn and we pretend they are grass! I hand pull any weeds in our garden beds. Our grass is never as green as our neighbors’ and it’s never bothered me since I wasn’t willing to use pesticides, but your grass sure does look great! I’m going to look into what our local organic nursery sells.

Eight years ago I started composting, and during that time I’ve used a fancy composter and a cylindrical container made of chicken wire, and love the chicken wire composter so much more. One really nice thing about it is that since there’s no lid, my kids can easily dump the compost into the bin without my help. We add eggs, all fruits and vegetables, and tons and tons of coffee grounds (thanks Starbucks!).

When the soil is ready, I use it for my vegetable and fruit garden, and if I have enough left over, use it in my flower beds. The amount of garbage our family generates has gone down considerably since we started composting, which is a nice plus.

30.June.2011

Suzanne – Did you buy or make the chicken wire compost? Either way, I’d love to know how it came about!

This was a good post we are installing sod in our backyard tomorrow and we will need to do something to keep it looking good and something safe.
We started composting inside since we have such a short summer season here. We have been having a great time with it and say it would be fun for kids. I am sure you boys would enjoy it. http://the2seasons.com/2011/03/29/indoor-composting-101/

30.June.2011

Dana, I made the chicken wire compost “bin”. It’s been a long time so I can’t remember what size piece of chicken wire I got (it might be 16″ high and 48″ around?), and then rolled it and had the ends touch. I used twist ties to keep it together initially, but now it’s been in that position for so long that even when I moved it to a new location it stayed in that position. Here’s a page that shows something similar to what I did. http://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/composting/composting—wire-compost-bins.htm

When I want to use the soil, I just lift the bin a few inches off the ground and shovel the good stuff out of there. I don’t turn my pile as often as I should, but since my main goal was to reduce our amount of garbage, even if I don’t get a lot of great soil, I’m still happy to be composting.

04.July.2011

we do the same kind of fertilizing in our yard, but our brand is called Whitney Farms. Also a mulching mower is the way to go. We have had great results with ours. We also plant clover in the grass as it puts nitrogen in the soil and looks pretty and also planting various kinds of grass some for shade in shady areas and sunny mix in sunny areas and let Mother nature sort it out.

21.September.2012

Coffee grounds make great fertilizer and Starbucks retail stores have no problem giving out their dumped coffee grounds. Please be advised that coffee grounds are very acidic and can imbalance your soil. I would recommend to mix them in a compost pile to help balance the pH or to mix it with limestone to balance the pH.

Coffee chaff, (which Starbucks and other premium coffee roasters, separate from the coffee bean during the roasting process), is also full of nitrates. Chaff is much better than coffee grounds, if you can get it. Happy gardening!

21.September.2012

Dana, I made the chicken wire compost years ago and it’s so easy. I ended up making a bigger one a few years ago because we are compost crazy! Even my five year old dumps the compost for me because of how easy it is without the lid.

Joe B, I mix the coffee grounds into my compost, I don’t use them directly on the soil. Because I live in a place that has very acidic soil, I do check it fairly regularly and add limestone as needed. :)