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:

It seems that these days all the buzz is around “being green” and of course what better way to do that than through your lawn care practices. But what is “green” lawn care anyway?

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!