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!

First, let’s define some terms so you guys can follow my thinking ok?

What is Natural Fertilizer?

A natural lawn fertilizer is one that is derived from elements that are naturally occurring on the Earth. Yeah, not the most technical definition, I know, but think about this:

Your lawn needs nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus to grow properly in most cases. These are known as “macro-nutrients.”

There are other “micronutrients” such as iron, that will also help your grass, but for our purposes here, we are focusing on the macros.

There are naturally occurring phosphorus and potassium deposits throughout most of world. There are also ways to find naturally existing nitrogen.

Natural nitrogen usually comes from organic sources, namely plantlife. Just so you know, not all natural fertilizers are organic, but all organic sources are natural! Read that one twice ok?

Long story short, we need to find a way to get natural nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus into our lawns to make them healthy. The problem with this is that many natural sources of macro elements are not concentrated enough to do us any good. This is why we do, on occasion, need to utilize some synthetic, or man made sources and include them in our lawn care treatment program.

What is Synthetic Fertilizer?

Synthetic lawn fertilizer still contains the macro nutrients for the lawn that I mentioned above, however, the elements are chemically bonded or “made” in a lab somewhere. Think of synthetic fertilizer just like daily vitamin capsules you take. When you take a store bought vitamin supplement, that is man made and it gives you 100% of your daily needs in a convenient, small dose. You could, theoretically get the same nutrients by eating 100 stalks of broccoli every morning, but who can do that right?

Synthetic fertilizers work the same way. You put down much less to get a big impact, faster.

What Is The Natural and Synthetic Fert Balance?

Here’s the key to it all: natural fertilizers will only release nutrients (break down) when there is sufficient heat to do so… and they release very very slowly. This is good because the lawn can intake the nutrients slowly, growing and thickening at a normal, healthy pace. But the problem comes in when you are trying to green up your lawn in March and April and the night time temps are still in the low 30s and 40s … it’s just not warm enough to break down those natural nutrients.

This is where proper use of synthetic fert comes in. The synthetics are made to break down with water! And what do we get lots of in March and April?… yep, rain!

So the key is to use a nice balance of good synthetic fertilizer in the spring, and slow releasing, healthy natural fertilizer in the fall. Bing, bang, done!

If you’d like to learn more about this concept, one that I call a “hybrid lawn treatment solution” then get my step-by-step ebook for just $7 now. It takes you through the exact steps you should be following during the year to achieve a healthy, natural, thick lawn. It basically tells you “when to do what for your lawn” without using harsh products that will do more harm that good. Get the book here.

Now let’s fastforward about 20 years to where I am now. I am the operations manager for a very large lawn fertilization outfit in Chicago. (Can’t tell you the name due to non-compete issues). I am a licensed pesticide applicator in both Illinois and Indiana and I have walked on over 10,000 lawns during my days in the business. If it can happen to a lawn, I have seen it, from Florida where I started as a kid to the midwest where I work now.

What are the advantages of a natural lawn?

First off guys, having a lawn that is treated with natural products or methods is going to last longer and stay greener and healthier for the long haul. This is because treating your lawn organically/naturally is going to yield very slow, sustainable results instead of fast results. Let me illustrate:

If you feed your kids candy what happens? They get an immediate burst of hyper energy that ends quickly in a crash. The same goes for your lawn. If you use the wrong synthetically produced high nitrogen fertilizers, your lawn will green up very quickly and grow super fast, but crash very soon. This is because high nitrogen synthetic fertilizers release nutrients fast; I mean very fast guys, but they really do nothing to help grass plants develop strong roots in the process. So essentially what you get with synthetic fertilizers like Scott’s or K-Grow is a fast green that cannot support itself in the long term because there are no root structures to maintain it. So the lawn continues to need heavy doses of nitrogen to sustain its green appearance.

Now let’s talk about a lawn that is treated with slow release natural fertilizers. Yep, that’s right, natural organic fertilizers are naturally slow releasing. That’s really the first  and biggest advantage. You see, synthetic fertilizers release nutrients (mainly nitrogen) when they get wet, which is why you are told to “water in the fertilizer.” But that means the nutrients get washed into the soil all in one big shot, fast. But organic or natural fertilizers release their nutrients by naturally breaking down over time. The main thing needed for organic fertilizers to release nutrients is heat. And when the temps do hit a level enough for the nutrients to break down and release, they do it slowly, over time, meaning the grass roots get the slow treatment too. Slow release means slow growth, steady as she goes.

Finally, a lawn that grows slowly will also sustain that growth for a much longer period of time. That means that you really need to do little to the grass once it gets to a certain point, naturally!

Well guys, I gotta be honest and tell you that there is no clear definition of green, responsible lawn care. It really depends on who you are talking to, what their experiences are, and where they learned turf care. But since this is my lawn care tips blog, I figure I will give you my own opinions which have been formulated over nearly 20 years of turf care experience.

Integrated Pest Management And Natural Lawn Care

First off, there is no way to go 100% organic or natural in you lawn care regimen and expect to get top results. (by top results I mean a thick, green, weed free lawn). There is NO ORGANIC WEED KILLER! If anyone tells you that, they are flat out selling you snake oil! In addition, there is no such thing as a 100% weed free lawn! Weeds will always come back into your grass during any given year because of factors out of your control; ie: that neighbor that does nothing at all for his grass.

So this brings us to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and your lawn care regimen. Basically, IPM is a thought process whereby we only use chemical control (non natural) when pest pressure (in this case the best is weeds) exceeds amounts that we are “willing to deal with.” Now, farmers will use IPM in a different way that you and me as homeowners, but that is not the point here.

The point is that if you are going to “go green” with your lawn, you will need to be willing to accept “some” weeds in your lawn. In addition, when you do spray those weeds with a herbicide, you don’t use a blanket application, rather a targeted, or spot-sprayed application. This is the essence of IPM when it comes to erradcating weeds in your lawn: SPOT SPRAY ONLY!

This also means that you don’t have to break out the pump sprayer every time a dandelion or thistle pops up either. If you want to be natural in your lawn care, who says you can’t pull weeds by hand? Afterall, it doesn’t take that much effort to do so, and pulling weeds is very environmentally friendly! Get your hands dirty guys!

Lawn Fertilization; natural and organic

There is a lot that I could ramble about when it comes to properly using fertilizer on your lawn with an eye on the environmental angle. In short, if you choose to use 100% natural or organically derived fertilizers, you should expect to get very slow, yet sustainable results. What I mean by that is organic fertilizers will NOT release nutrients in colder temperatures, and even so, they release slowly when it is hot.

In addition, when you use an organic fertilizer like Milorganite, you have to put down heavy amounts to make any difference. Personally, I am fine with putting down 15 lbs per 1,000 sq feet of lawn space when using Milorganite, but to the average homeowner, it will feel like you are applying it with a snow shovel!

This is, in fact, the biggest problem most homeowners encounter when applying natural or organic lawn fertilizers: that bein they don’t put down enough. You guys are so worried about burning your lawn, so you dial back the amounts not realizing organics won’t burn anyway.

I guess that is all I have to say today, but the key is following along with my program and understanding the organic lawn care takes time, hard work and most of all, patience! If you do that, you will eventually have a lawn just like mine pictured here: 99% organic!

And seriously, that really is a smart question to be asking, because, well, a thicker lawn will naturally resist most other problems that come up. So let’s explore that first (yeah, I am a little long winded, so bare with me k?) 

Advantages Of A Thick Lawn

If your lawn is thick, it can survive and sustain itself through natural “pressures” that come against it during the year. These pressures can be as simple as drought and heat, or as complex as insect or disease infestation. The truth is, however, that the healthiest lawns will have a healthy root system, and a healthy root system is by default a thicker one, making the top of the lawn (the part you and I see) thicker and prettier! (you should read that again to understand it!)

A thick lawn will also keep weeds down and out, as well as offer more benefits for playing games like horseshoes or corn hole. Plus, nice, thick lawns make your neighbors jealous, and THAT is really our aim ain’t it?

How To Get A Thick Lawn

Well, there are a lot of ways to make your lawn thicker, but here are the most basic points.

1) Proper fertilization: Feeding the lawn the right way will make it grow thicker. It sounds simple, but lawns are a lot like people: the more you feed them, the thicker they get. But what you feed the lawn is important too. You want a nice balance of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus to feed every part of the grass plant from root to stem to blade. Of course, this will also benefit the lawn’s color in the process. If you want some super good details on how to fertilize your lawn, get my book!

2) Lawn Core Aeration: if you read this lawn care blog often, then you know I am a big proponent of lawn aeration. This is a process whereby a large aeration machine is taken across the lawn. The machine pulls actual plugs of soil out and deposites them back ont eh surface. The plugs themselves are only about the size of your thumb, but my removing them, air water and nutrients get directly to the lawn’s root system, making it expand and grow! Thicker roots baby! I personally think you should aerate your lawn every spring and every fall no matter what! If you can’t do it, then hire a lawn pro to do it for you… it’s that important.

3) Proper Lawn Watering: you’ll also hear me harp on this one a lot too; water your lawn right. The reason I constantly talk about irrigation practices is that doing it wrong can destroy your grass fast man! If you water shallow and frequent, you are going to create a shallow rooted lawn. That’s because light watering does no penetrate, meaning the grass roots mu turn upward to get that little water you sprinkled. Shallow roots cannot resits heat or other stresses, so they die and create a thatch problem!.. bummer!

What you should do is water just 2 or 3 times per week, and do it deeply. Like leave that sprinkler out in each are for an hour or so and let that water soak in deep. Be consistent and always water in the AM rather than the night. If you have an automatic sprinkler system, you can get away with having each zone on for 40 minutes three times per week. This is because properly installed irrigation systems are very efficient, meaning you can get a good soaking in less time.

That’s it guys: these three easy tips will help you have a thick lawn all year long, and remember, a thicker lawn is our ultimate goal!