Tips For Organic Lawn & Organic Gardening

What you will find in this article is some important facts about organic gardening, tips on how to start to be green and relativistic views about safe use of chemicals. You will also find tips on how to use fertilizers, organic fertilizer, soil testing, seeding, and how to use lawn reel mowers. Articles will be on going so please sign in on contact page for up dates. Hopefully you will be able to come to your own conclusion and direction you should be heading.

Please take the time to click on the terms to go to the glossary to explain some important facts about terms that get tossed around. I think you will better understand where I’m coming from.

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Organic lawn / organic gardening begins with soil testing

Why do I need soil testing?

Soil testing is where a organic lawn and organic gardening or IPM (Integrated Plant Management) starts. In some soils you could put down pound after pound of nitrogen and never change the way your lawn looks. The soil and fertilizing is about balance. To much of some minerals can tie up other minerals. IPM and soil testing will allow you save money, be better for the environment and grow a better crop. Soil testing should be done about every three years.

If you are starting a new lawn test the soil first before laying sod or seeding. This way you can incorporate the minerals needed into the top 3 inches of soil. This will help get you off to a great start.

One of the simple things you can test is PH in the soil. This can be done most accurate by sending to a laboratory for testing. There are simple meters you can buy like the ones used for house plants but keep in mind these will only tell you the PH of where the probe touches. A foot away could be different so you need to average these readings.  The PH needed for organic lawns is between 6 and 7.

Easy use color comparator tests 10 times includes instructions and PH preference list for over 450 plants.   

$5.95

How to take soil samples.

The first thing you need to think about is how you plan to treat the area. Are all the areas going to be treated the same way such as flower beds, lawn, garden, front yard, back yard, or steep slopes.

If they are all going to be treated the same take samples from all of these areas and mix them together. If you plan to treat them differently take separate samples from each area doing the same thing to best represent that area.

• Using a clean trowel or similar tool scrape away any non-decomposed plant tissue and materials.

• Next cut a core or divot 6 inches deep into soil and place the soil in a clean plastic container. Repeat this step 8 to 10 times in your lawn or area which is being sampled.

• Mix all the collected soil and remove grass roots. Put 2 to 3 cups in a 2 qt. plastic bag.

• With a permanent put your name, address, and area sampled on the bag.

PH soil meter Use probe to instantly test your soil for acid or alkaline Then use information included to find which plants are best suited for your soil and how to alter the soil conditions Also included is a plant care booklet which lists over 400 pH levels 

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