Now, I know what you are thinking “Yeah, but that takes a lot of work and time to get my lawn so thick that it can resist weeds and such.”

And you’d be right to some extent, but the truth is that it’s not really THAT much work. I mean, seriously guys, how much time do you really spend in your lawn anyway? No matter what you do, you have to cut it every week right? But if you cut it the way I tell you to, you can work to get it thicker anyway.

Cut Tall – Yes, Cut Tall

So tip #1 in getting your lawn thicker: Cut tall all year and mulch the clippings. And when I say “cut tall” I mean 3.5 or 4″ tall. Put that mower all the way to the top. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to the look. And mulch those clippings so you return natural nutrients to the soil.

Feed The Soil – Feed The Lawn

Fertilizer is not lawn food. I know that I say “feed your lawn” but that is really a generic reference. In reality, fertilizer puts nutrients into the soil that support the growth of the lawn. When we use natural/organic fertilizers, we are actually building the soil first, and in turn, strengthening the lawn.

The healthier the soil, the thicker the lawn – simple.

This is why I recommend fertilizing with Milorganite and Ringer lawn fertilizers, as well as mulching lawn clippings. If you need an initial boost for our lawn, you can follow the next tip. (get my lawn care book too).

Learn To Grow Grass Seed

Learn To Grow Grass Seed

If you are making the commitment to have a natural lawn, then you also need to learn to grow grass seed. We want to get the lawn thicker and adding fresh grass seed every year is a necessity. You want to add in the seed after you perform our next step…

Aerate In Spring And Fall

Aeration is the process whereby a machine is taken across he lawn and plugs are pulled up and deposited on top. Aerating does quite a few things including: breaking down thatch, relieving compaction in the soil, increasing soil bio activity and helping air, water and nutrients get into the root zone. You can rent an aerator or hire out this task but you gotta do it in SPRING and in the FALL without FAIL!

These are the basics. I know you think this is a lot, but really, it’s about 15 hours a year (not including the mowing). And trust me, it’s worth it to spend 15 hours each year performing these simple tasks. The results will come slowly over time, but your patience and persistence will pay off.

Milorganite is pretty much processed sewer sludge. Yeah, it’s human poop… a bio-solid organic fertilizer. Some of you won’t like that… but when you get it in the bag, it is just dark gray granulars with a slight musky scent – no worse than any other garden odor.

So let’s get away from what Milorganite “is” and get to what Milorganite “does” – cuz that is what really matters.

Milorganite Contains Nitrogen

Nitrogen is the primary element that supports healthy turf growth and color. If you want a “green lawn,” then nitrogen is your friend. The good news with Milorgnite is that it won’t over-push the to growth of the grass. What I mean is that too much nitrogen will actually make your lawn grow too fast and cause it to thin out over time. I usually see this happen when synthetic fertilizers are used on a lawn in excess of labeling recommendations.

however, with Milorganite, you don’t run the risk of applying too much nitrogen, and in turn, there is no chance of burning the lawn either.

Milorganite Contains Iron Too

Iron is a micro-nutrient that directly supports plant photosynthesis. As you will recall from your high school science class, photosynthesis is the process whereby plants (including grass!) make their own food. The food the plants make (sugars) go to making more and more leaves and roots and so on.

Iron is important, but it has to be in a state that it can be utilized. Oftentimes iron gets bound up in soil and is useless to grass plants. however, the iron in Milorganite is “chelated” which basically means it is immediately available to the plant. Bonus!

Of course, for me and you, we want iron in our lawns because it makes the grass a nice deep-blue-green color that will set us apart!

So if you are looking for a top notch natural fertilizer product that will produce excellent results, I HIGHLY recommend Milorganite. I use it on my lawn, and just love the results.

My Organic Lawn

If 2011 is the year you’ve decided to “go natural” with your lawn care, then you are in luck… it’s also the year (like now) I decided to give you some great tips to help you. ha!

This article is designed to give you a few basics that you need to understand about organic and natural lawn care. Listen up and get started ASAP! (depending on where you live and what the snow situation is of course)

Some Light Raking

“Oh Gosh, did he tell us to rake the lawn?”

Yep guys, I did (some)! I have never told you that lawn care was easy! Get out there and do some light raking, especially on the areas that are matted down from heavy snow or foot traffic. I have areas in my own lawn that are in the shade, and the snow lingers there longer creating a snow mold problem beneath. It isn’t a serious problem, but raking it out to increase the air flow is important.

Some of you may need to do a little more than just light raking in the spring. If you have a major lawn thatch problem, plan to rent a power rake and get after it early on!

Crabgrass - Ick!

Prevent Crab Grass

If you are going natural, then good on you! … but crab grass is still a pretty major concern and our natural/organic options are few. They are also not as effective and have a much smaller window of opportunity. Enter: Corn Gluten.

Corn gluten meal is a corn by-product that will do a fairly good job of preventing crab grass if you get it down in time. That means you must apply it pretty much as soon as the snow melts. In addition, you have to put it down freeking heavy ya’ll! It’s natural, and because of that, it takes a ton of it to build up to the point where it will work to thwart the crab grass. PLEASE read the label on the product you get and follow follow follow it! So many times I see so-called lawn pros giving out natural lawn care advice but they don’t stress the need to ensure your application rate is correct. When using naturals and organics for lawn care, you need to be prepared to shovel that shix onto the lawn, literally!

Get My Book

Yeah I know, I an schlogging my lawn care ebook again, but that’s because it will help you get results! So many of you guys do a lot of the right things, but you just don’t know exactly WHAT to put on your lawn. Sure, you know you want to go organic, but which organic fertilizer is the best? And where do I get it? I show and tell you all of that in the book for just seven bucks! What a bargain! LOL Get it here

Drink Some Wacko Brew and be Patient!

Be Patient

Finally, you guys really do need to chill out a bit on the lawn! Drinks some beers and enjoy the process will ya? When you go natural, it takes a bit longer to see results, but once your lawn does respond and becomes thick, green and vigorous, it will stay that way longer! Trust me, the natural lawn care marathon is very rewarding if you just stay the course!

Are you with me? I hope so!

If you want a nice, thick, healthy and natural green lawn, then you are going to have to master the art of growing grass seed. It is a staple of the healthy lawn.

Now there are literally dozens of “ways to grow grass seed” but all of them require the same basic 3 “foundation principles.”

Gosh, I am sounding really stuff there eh? maybe you should just watch the video below and be entertained and learn something at the same time then eh?

So you see that methods are great, but you need these three basics in order to succeed with any of them.
1) heat – temps between 45 degrees and 75 degrees consistently
2) water – lots of water water water… daily for 21-24 days!!
3) seed/soil contact – so your seed has somewhere to root into when it begins to germinate.

Did you like the vid? I hope so!

Today I am giving you some simple steps you should be taking now so you are set up well next year.

1) Aerate your lawn now. Lawn aeration is one of the very most important practices of the natural lawn care enthusiast! (yes, you are an enthusiast!)

The reason lawn aeration is so important is because it is mechanical and works EVERY time you do it. Removing cores of soil from the lawn helps relieve compaction created during the hot summer. It also allows the turf roots to spread out, making the lawn thicker. Lawns expand their root systems in fall naturally anyway, so aerating pushes that process along.

2) Lawn seeding. One of the secrets to having a thick lawn is to “Always Be Seeding.” This is especially necessary when you have a natural lawn. The type of seed you use will be determined on your area of the country, but where I live in the Midwest, we use either Kentucky Bluegrass, Perennial Rye Grass or Turf Type Tall Fescue. In fact, it is a great idea to use a mixture of these when you can.

For seeding, throw it down right before AND right after the aeration. Just pretend you are feeding chickens and toss it out there. If you have thin spots, throw down more seed there.

Don’t worry about the seed germinating this year. Just let it lay over winter and grown in the spring of next year. We call this a “dormant seeding.”

3) Prevent crab grass now. I have talked before about Corn Gluten as a crab grass preventative but I didn’t tell you that you can start applying it in the fall as a double measure for the next year. Corn gluten needs to build up in the soil so applying it in the fall and again in the spring accomplishes that and will stop more of the crab grass from popping up in later May and June.

4) Fertilize. I want you to fertilize twice in the fall and early winter. Once in October and another time at the end of November would be perfect. I always recommend Milorganite of course. This will help prevent snow mold in the lawn and help it green up during the earlier spring a little faster than the rest of the lawns on your block!

So there you go guys, step-by-step fall lawn care tips, naturally!

Lawn Aeration Benefits

Aerating the lawn is a process whereby cores of soil are pulled up from the turf using a machine that is a little bit bigger than a lawn mower. The machine has tines on it that pierce down into the lawn and actually pull out cores that are each about the size of a roll of dimes. This accomplishes a couple things:

1) Hard compacted soil (especially clay soil) is effectively loosened when cores are removed. When you remove the cores, the rest of the soil “gives way” and becomes literally “aerated.” In addition, the extra space created allow the turf roots to expand. An expanded root system is a thicker root system – and thicker roots make a thicker top!

2) Aerating the lawn helps control your lawn’s thatch layer. Thatch is a layer of organic material in every lawn that resides just at the soil line. It is made up of dead grass material, leaves and other stuff and serves many good purposes. However, when the thatch layer gets too thick, it can cause problems. It will stop water and nutrients from getting deep into the soil, as well as harbor disease. It also creates shallow rooting. When you aerate, you are punching holes in the thatch, enough to keep it managed properly.

3) Aeration allows nutrients and water to hit the root system direct. Since you are going to open up the lawn when you aerate, you might as well throw some good nutrients down on the lawn at the same time. You will never get as good of penetration then at the time of aerating. Follow my instructions in my book to know what to put down.

Those are the main reasons to have your lawn aerated this year. Even if your lawn is super thick and healthy already, you should aerate it every fall.

PR: wait… I: wait… L: wait… LD: wait… I: wait… wait… Rank: wait… Traffic: wait… Price: wait… C: wait…

Brown Spots – Is It Grub Worms?

Towards the latter part of the summer, I get dozens of emails from people wondering why and what those brown areas are in their lawns. Now, there are any number of reasons your lawn turns brown in the summer. It could be from poor irrigation, heat stress, sod web worm insects, dollar spot fungus or maybe, just maybe — GRUB WORMS!

what caused these brown areas?

What you need to do is get down on your knees and start digging in that lawn! try to pull up the brown grass and see what you find. The tell-tail sign that you have grub worms is your lawn will pull right up and roll back like you are rolling back a carpet.

Does the lawn peel back?

Once you peel back the  lawn, start looking for little shrimp underneath – if you find them, then you have grub worm issues. I also recommend you look in several places. Look around the edges, in the middle of the brown spots, everywhere. If you find them, this is what they look like.

lawn grubs

How To Kill Grubs

Now you are going to need a pesticide to kill these guys. I know you want your lawn to be natural, but would you have it become naturally DEAD? No, so we need to treat it, but do it responsibly! Use the product below, use a hand spreader and only apply the product to the brown areas and 24″ outside of the brown areas. Don’t blanket treat the lawn. This is what we call Integrated Pest Management – just using enough pesticide to cure the problem but not going overboard. Be sure to water in the treatment immediately and then go ahead and re-seed in 3 weeks. Remember, the idea is to only put the pesticides in and around the affected areas and no where else. Of course, you need to monitor the situation to see if damage shows up in other areas of the lawn. The idea is to be conscious of what you are doing!

Dollar spot appears mostly in lawns that are “sod on clay” which means areas of the country where sod was laid directly on top of clay soil. That pretty much covers a good portion of the midwest and south. It’s a fungus that resides in the soil and attacks weakened root structures in turf causing small brown spots that start out the size of silver dollars. In the picture below, you can see the start of dollar spot in a very healthy lawn.

I have seen it in all kinds of grass from kentucky blue, perennial rye and st augustine. Like I said, in most years, I don’t see it as that big of a deal. But this year we have had sustained dumping rains pretty much all summer with intermittent super high temps and humidity. Now, I know we get these kind of conditions every year, but this season they have been long sustained over and over and over. This has made the disease spread faster and further in lawns where permanent damage may be seen.

In the second picture below, you can see a severe case of dollar spot. This is in a “heat zone” between the street and the sidewalk and the added heat allowed the fungus to spread very fast.

So How Can We Stop Dollar Spot Fungus?
The best way to cure dollar spot disease in your lawn is to prevent it using a natural fungicide called Serenade Disease Control. This product works very well on many lawn fungus problems, including dollar spot.

But you are here because you already have brown spots in your lawn! And the good news is that Serenade Disease Cont32 Oz Con is still the product of choice because using it will STOP the spread of the fungus any further. You will need to apply it a few times following the label instructions.

In addition, I would suggest cutting your watering and irrigation habits down to about once per week. When you do water, water for a solid hour in each spot. We want to go with infrequent yet deep waterings when dollar spot is evident.

I also want you to mow very tall and catch your clippings. Dollar spot can be spread through contaminated clippings so catching them and disposing of them is best when the disease is raging in your lawn.

Finally, I want you to fertilize normally using one of my recommended organic natural fertilizers. This will give you slow release nitrogen that will keep the lawn growing throughout the course of the problem.

Best Summer Lawn Fertilizer

Since it is hot and dry this time of year, I want you guys to consider using an organic lawn fertilizer. The reason for this is the natural slow release that organics give. You see, organic and natural lawn fertilizers break down and release their nutrients from heat, not water. This is why you have to water in most of the synthetic fert you get at the store, whereas organics just need time… slow time… slow release! THAT is why they work well and they won’t burn the lawn or push an over-abundance or growth.

I have two preferences for summer lawn fertilizers: Milorganite and Ringer Lawn Restore. Let’s talk about each one for a bit.

Milorganite Organic Fertilizer For Lawns

Milorganite should be used (in my opinion) at the end of May as your early summer boost fertilizer. It is basically sewage from Milwaukee that has been combined with iron and packaged for lawns! Gross I know, but by the time you get it, just little charcoal colored pellets remain. It is very slow release and contains iron and nitrogen in quantities that will give your lawn a sustained feeding during the transition from spring to summer.

You need to follow the directions on the label, which at the time I am writing this, call for 15lbs of Milorganite per 1,000 square feet of lawn space. Guys, that is gonna feel like you are shoveling it on, but trust me, it will be just fine. Milorganite will not burn your grass and you have to apply a lot in order to get the long-term sustained slow release we are looking for. A related article on lawn iron will help you understand why I like this fertilizer for early summer so much.

See a picture of my lawn below taken August 4 just after we had sustained temps in the mid-90s here in Indiana. Color stayed really nice.

Ringer Lawn Restore Organic Fertilizer

My second choice for a summer natural fertilizer is Ringer Lawn Restore. I recommend you apply this one in mid-August just to help push your lawn through later summer pressures and get you firmly into the fall lawn season. Ringer is lots of chicken poop and parts and all that… YUCK! … and it smells, but I tell you what guys, the results it brings are awesome.

Ringer works well because it contains nitrogen and potassium which are very essential elements when it comes to the turf’s ability to sustain summer heat, lack of water and insect stress.  You don’t need quite as much Ringer Lawn Restore to get good results; bout 10lbs of product applied to each 1,000 sq feet of lawn area. It will seem like a lot still, but have no fear!

If you use these two fertilizers on your lawn this summer and apply them properly, you will have nice results that will help your lawn look good during the hottest months. Of course, I must stress the importance of proper lawn watering and proper lawn mowing during the entire year, but especially when it is hot outside!

Good luck lawn care lovers… your questions are welcome below in the comment section:

What Are Grub Worms?

Grubs are the larvae of a number of May-June beetles and are found from about the Wisonsin/Illinois border all the way down to the far South. The May-June beetles (June bugs) lay eggs in lawns during the early and mid-summer. Those eggs hatch into grubs and those grubs feed, munch and chew on the roots of your turf. That is why areas die out and can be pulled up like patches of carpet.

The damage from grub worms begins in the summer and usually is seen sometime into Sept or Oct or later depending how far North you live. The point is that by the time the grub worm damage appears, it’s too late! That is why PREVENTION of grub worms is the main key.

Grub Worm Insecticides

Preventing grub worm damage is really what we want to shoot for, and since they damage lawns in the summer, we need to apply grub worm prevention in June or July at the very latest – with June being the optimum time. Most preventions on the market today that are most effective contain a product called “merit” which is watered into the soil, taken in my grass roots and has a residual value of up to 3 months. If you put it down in June, you will be covered and protected through the feeding season. Below are grub worm products that contain Merit as they main ingredient.

If you are reading this and you are already finding ACTIVE grubs in your lawn, then you have a bigger problem and need a faster solution. You need to kill the buggers NOW and that means you need a contact kill product like the ones below.

Natural and Organic Grub Controls

First off, I DO NOT RECOMMEND using organic grub controls if your lawn isn’t already thick and healthy. Here’s the thing guys: a very thick, healthy lawn will resist grubs in higher numbers on its own. The thicker the turf, the more stress and damage it can recover from naturally WITHOUT any chemicals.

If your lawn is like mine below, then you can use organic or natural grub controls and get very good results. The truth is that organic grub controls are super effective in the first place, so you need a thick, healthy lawn in order to rely on them. That is the main point here.

Below are some of the better organic or natural grub controls that I have used over the years with good effectiveness, milky spore grub prevention being the best one… but is does require multiple applications to build up in your soil.