- How to Start Your First Organic Garden (Part 6)

To make sure your lawn fertilizer is environmentally friendly, check to see that it achieves the standards of the EPA and OSB (National Organic Standards Board) guidelines for environmentally friendly garden care products.

About Organic Lawn fertilizers
If you?re looking for pet friendly lawn fertilizers, most organic lawn fertilizers that are certified by the EPA pose no risk to your pets. You can also talk to your veterinarian or local extension agent for other recommendations.

Most organic lawn fertilizers are designed to build up the soil itself, whereas artificial fertilizers may not do much to help create healthier soil. Also, look for organic lawn fertilizers that help stimulate the presence of beneficial soil organisms. These critters that live in the soil can actually help break down some elements of the lawn fertilizer and increase their efficiency. If you have healthy soil with lots of organic material mixed and a high number of soil organisms, your grass will naturally be able to fight diseases, pathogenic nematodes, and the pests that may attack your lawn.

Most organic lawn fertilizers are also designed to be more efficiently absorbed than synthetic fertilizers. This is especially true of liquid organic lawn fertilizers. This means that excess nutrients are less likely to find their way into local water supplies and contaminate the water.

Environmentally friendly lawn fertilizers generally come in two forms, dry organic fertilizers and liquid organic fertilizers. Dry organic lawn fertilizers will typically stay on the lawn longer and therefore require fewer treatments. However, you will need some sort of spreader to distribute them over your lawn. Therefore, they are harder to use on irregularly shaped lawns. Dry organic lawn fertilizers may contain such natural ingredients as blood meal, alfalfa, corn gluten meal, and feather meal.

Liquid organic lawn fertilizers are absorbed almost instantly by your grass. This makes them useful for a quick greening of your grass. Products like HastaGro liquid organic fertilizer are intended as foliar treatments. This means that nutrients are absorbed quickly and effectively through the leaves. An added advantage of liquid fertilizers is that they slowly release nitrogen, meaning they?re very unlikely to burn your lawn.

Using Dry Organic Lawn Fertilizers
Dry organic fertilizers are useful for covering large areas. To use them, you will need some kind of spreader. Otherwise, you risk not having your dry fertilizer distributed out evenly over the lawn. Keep in mind that dry fertilizers are difficult to use on irregularly shaped lawns.

Spreaders are available in either drop or broadcast spreaders. Drop spreaders drop the fertilizer directly below the spreader. They are economical and good for smaller spaces. Broadcast spreaders actually shoot the fertilizer beyond the spreader over a large area. If you have a large lawn, you?ll probably want to use a broadcast spreader.

Using Liquid Organic Lawn Fertilizers
Liquid lawn fertilizers are generally very easy to use. You simply attach the liquid fertilizer to a common garden hose. The easy application of a liquid organic lawn fertilizer makes them ideal for fertilizing irregular spaces. Remember to read the application instruction for your liquid lawn fertilizer very carefully before you use it.

In addition to organic lawn fertilizers, you can use several different natural lawn care techniques to take care of your lawn. For example:

Test your soil frequently to determine what it needs.
Keep your clippings on your lawn. This is known as ?grass-cycling? and will help keep nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium in the soil. A reel mower is ideal for keeping grass clippings where they should be, on your lawn. If you keep your grass clippings on your lawn, you can reduce the use of liquid organic fertilizers to about four times a growing season.

Avoid fertilizing if you?re expecting rain. The fertilizer may simply wash off and will not do your lawn any good.

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- How to Start Your First Organic Garden (Part 5)
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- How to Start Your First Organic Garden (Part 1)