Organic Lawn Renovation

Posted by Chris Field
August 31st, 2009
Filed in Garden Maintenance
Tags: clover, grass seed, lawns

Fall is a good time to renovate the lawn, if your lawn needs lots of work. Cooler temperatures and shorter days allows the grass seed to sprout and grow a strong root system before the winter. Organic lawn renovation is not terribly different than conventional lawn renovation, with the exception of removing or knocking down any existing lawn grass. Conventional practices call for spraying an area to be renovated with roundup before beginning work. If you are redoing for your lawn organically, you certainly do not want to do that! Otherwise, the techniques are fairly similar. Here is a step by step guide for renovating your lawn.

A very ... blah ... lawn

1. Start by preparing the ground. Either mow the existing grass very short—set your mower blade as low as it will go, or, to completely kill the vegetation underneath, spread some thick, dark plastic over the ground and leave for about a month. (Yes, we know that seems like a long time, but it will work!)
2. Next, top-dress with lightweight compost or a compost/topsoil blend. Rake it out until it is smooth. Remember, if there are lumps in the lawn at this point, there will be lumps in the finished product!
3. Seed the lawn with a mix of grass and white clover. The clover will naturally add nitrogen to the soil.
4. Water frequently until the seed begins germinating. At this stage, watering is critical. If the seeds dry out, you will have to re-seed.
5. Once the grass is about four weeks old, you can put down an organic pre-emergence herbicide, corn gluten, to keep weeds from sprouting.
6. Mow once the grass reaches about three to four inches tall.

Voila! Follow those easy steps for a new, lush lawn.