Natural Green Lawn

It’s August right now, and many of ya’ll are starting to tire of the whole lawn care season aren’t ya? Yep, you’d rather be doing other things rather than fertilizing your lawn, but I assure you, summer lawn fertilization is very important! Even if you are not all about “natural lawn care” and everything like I am, I want you to read and heed what I am saying here because it all works out in the end. A thick, healthy green lawn is what we want, and summer fertilization is an important part of that. (get my step-by-step fertilizing guide here)

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:

Only people who are far removed from the production site (so to speak) of horse manure sing its praises as “Black Gold,” or the best lawn fertilizer in the world. You can pick them out in a gardening crowd. They have faint memories of a horse on grandmother’s farm and the beautiful roses she used to grow by feeding her bushes plenty of horse manure. Or they may be serious composters and put every shred of organic material they can find in their homes in their bin, turning it with religious fervor on schedule. This type always moans, “Oh, if only I could get my hands on some real good horse manure! That’d be the ticket! The tomatoes I’d have by June!” Then there is the bookish kind of horse manure enthusiast who is fond of speaking of “texture,” “aged horse manure,” and what should or should not be in evidence in the horse manure, such as straw or green beetles, or mouse tails or lizard spleens.

Is Horse Manure A Good Lawn Fertilizer?

Take it from me, I come from a line of big time farmers who’d have thousands of acres under cultivation at a time. I also have some major horse manure producers on my own property. Not one of my ancestors or relatives sang the praises of horse manure as a fertilizer. I’ve personally tried it on several different kinds of plants and gardens, and not once was it superior to commercial fertilizers and it was a huge inconvenience to apply.

There are several good reasons for this, the chief of which is that, given the “Production Process” involved with horse manure, you simply cannot calibrate the minerals, nutrients, acid and organic material in it with any exactitude. The feed and the fodder a horse eats, plus the inner chemical self of the horse, the weather of a particular year, how much water was available and the quality of the water, etc. determine what comes out the back end. As for ageing manure, if you don’t know what you have in the first place, what difference does it make if it’s “aged?” This isn’t wine we’re talking about here.

For my money, worm castings and commercially available compost are infinitely easier to handle ,and they deliver superior results in a garden or lawn. Beyond that, sorry to say, but the chemical fertilizer companies know what will produce dynamite plants and lawns. They have spent billions in researching this. I can say with confidence my horses have not spent the first dollar on improving the consistency or potency of their manure and could care less. So if you want to get up to your elbows in horse manure, be my guest. Better yet, c’mon over, and I’ll give you a pitchfork. I’ve got plenty of it that needs to be mucked out.

Long story short, horse manure is NOT a viable natural lawn fertilizer. If you want something natural that works well on lawns, try corn gluten meal instead.. it smells better too!