Information for chemical-free lawn care?
Recently joined the subreddit, and found the discussions interesting. Now, unless I'm mistaken, there's a fairly heavy dependence on various weed-killers, etc., to kill weeds or prevent their germination. In my municipality, no chemicals can be used on lawns, so I'm looking for so-called "organic" methods of suppressing weeds and promoting growth of grass. I would appreciate any links to websites or other materials that can help me educated myself on this topic, and find the appropriate approach to improve the grass/weed ratio. I also have pets and children who play on the lawns, so the possible toxicity is also of concern. Any help is appreciated.
Posted Jul 9, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC
815
If you have an established lawn, it's sometimes not too difficult to keep it relatively weed free without chemicals. I haven't sprayed a single herbicide this year so far. But I regularly walk through to pull any weeds that do emerge.
"Neglected" is probably a better description than "established". Other than cutting it periodically, and pulling the various weeds by hand, we haven't done much with it. The soil is rather dense, and there are many trees growing along the property margins, so tree roots are quite prominent when one tries to dig. I suspect the first thing would be to do a proper soil test and see what we're dealing with. But as I noted, the goal of this post is to be pointed to sources of information so that I could start educating myself. Then, I can start asking the right questions.
In the absence of chemicals, the shadow of the gardener is what a lawn needs most. Weed, water, weed, cut, water, weed, thatch, weed, aerate, weed, fertilize, weed, overseed, weed, water, weed, Ph balance, weed, etc.
Corn gluten meal is often touted as inhibiting seed germination and is promoted as an organic method of doing so.
There are a lot of organic fertilizers such as milorganite that you can choose from.
Trimming the trees around your property can help as well as more sun can promote grass over the weeds.
Other than that it will probably be what has already been recommended to you. Cut high and often, water infrequently and deep, hand pull weeds, manage your pH.