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All you need to know about buying & using a push reel mower!
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PUSH MOWERS How They Work How To Use How To Buy Unique Benefits Proper Care Safety Rules Give a Hoot - Don't Pollute  This site is brought to you by www.PlanetNatural.com |
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Organic Lawn Fertilizers vs. ChemLawn Excerpt from Building a Healthy Lawn, by Stuart Franklin  FertilizingIs it really necessary to fertilize lawns? For most homeowners, the answer is yes. But if you have a well-structured soil, full of worms and other soil life, and you can leave most of your clippings to decompose, then your fertilizer needs will be minimal. Think of fertilizing as soil building instead of plant feeding. Natural lawn fertilizers will increase soil life, improve structure, and provide nutrients. The minerals and nutrients in a living soil are quickly broken down and made available for the roots to take in. In fact, a living soil can manufacture certain nutrients from the atmosphere as well as from soil matter. This doesn't take place in a soil that has had the life in it killed off, which is one reason why established, living soils need significantly less fertilizer. A living soil is capable of producing a large part of a lawn's fertilizer needs on its own, especially if the clippings are recycled. The Synthetic and the Natural Let's take a good look at the differences between synthetic chemical and natural fertilizers. Organic or natural fertilizers come from plant and animal sources, or from rock powders. These include bone meal, dehydrated manures, cottonseed meal, seaweed and fish products, and granite dust. There are currently scores of natural products available in pure and combined forms. Such materials break down slowly to provide long-term nutrition and steady rather than excessive growth. They also encourage soil life and help build better soil structure. Certain beneficial bacteria, aided by natural fertilizers, absorb nitrogen from the atmosphere and fix it (release it) into the soil. Other bacteria form hormones which stimulate root growth. A few of the better natural fertilizer blends contain additional beneficial bacteria and enzymes so the soil will come back to life more quickly. These superior fertilizers often provide trace elements, vital nutrients that plants in minute quantities. It is almost impossible to harm a lawn with organic fertilizers. Natural fertilizers have very few drawbacks. True, they usually take a while to break down, especially when first introduced on a cold, dead, or half-dead soil, but quick-fix, instant results are not nature's way. Gradual yet lasting changes benefit the lawn more in the long run. Some natural fertilizers have an odor, but the odor is not long-lasting, especially when the fertilizer is put on a living soil that quickly breaks it down into usable nutrients. Most brands are deodorized now, and watering after fertilizing will help speed things up. You'll find natural fertilizers bulkier than chemical fertilizers, and the bulk does enable more uniform application. Though sometimes more expensive than chemical fertilizers, I have found natural fertilizers to be ultimately quite economical. Synthetic chemical fertilizers act quickly, if that is what you want. They can make a bad lawn look better faster than most natural fertilizers can. Their ingredient proportions are precise, so that you can easily compute exactly how much of each nutrient your lawn is getting (though how much your lawn actually needs is still a guess). And they are often inexpensive. Here are the drawbacks of chemical fertilizers. They release their nutrients too quickly, creating excessive top growth before the roots can catch up. Not only does this kind of growth weaken the grass, but you may find yourself struggling to cut a six-inch-high lawn two days after the spraying company fertilized. Much of a quickly released fertilizer tends to get leached away, especially on sandy soils. If you use chemical fertilizers, try them in small quantities applied frequently. This will prevent over-fertilizing, prevent waste from leaching, and allow the soil to buffer harmful effects much more easily. Most chemical fertilizers can burn a lawn if it's not watered soon. Their high salt concentration literally sucks moisture from the grass plants. An overabundance of chemicals in the soil will chase away earthworms, and that is a gardening crime. Let me digress here a bit. Earthworms ingest soil and decaying plant material and leave behind castings (up to 40 pounds per 1000 square feet in a healthy soil). Worm castings are extremely rich in nutrients, and in fact are actually collected by some people and sold to florists as fertilizer and soil conditioner. This fertilizer is an additional benefit that you get from organic gardening methods, and for you it's free. Earthworms can burrow into the harder subsoil. Their castings enhance microbial activity down deep, which helps turn subsoil into topsoil. Some species of worms burrow right up to the top of the soil and chew up grass clippings. While they are on top, they leave castings which aid decomposition. These castings are unsightly only on fancy, short-cropped lawns. On regular lawns you don't see them. For most homeowners, the more earthworms the better. Let me quote Paul Voykin from his book Ask the Lawn Expert on his experience with earthworms. "A long time ago I noticed this significant natural phenomenon: Whenever lawns, gardens, or golf courses had an abundant earthworm population, the turf had a strong root system and much less thatch, and was healthy-looking even when under nourished....Believe me, no machine can duplicate the natural aerification process caused by Mother Nature's snaky little creatures." Chemical lawn fertilizer is also capable of killing off many of the soil microbes that are responsible for decomposition, soil formation, nutrient production, and protection from fungus and other lawn diseases. Stronger chemicals ruin soil structure by dissolving the bonding materials (formed by microbes) that hold soil particles together, and can turn topsoil into the cement like crust you may have noticed in the pots of houseplants that are regularly fed typical plant food. Many chemical fertilizers contain acids which in turn make the soil acid. The liquid forms, especially, encourage shallow rooting and thatch formation. Chemical fertilizers will improve a poor soil by adding nutrients to it, but when misapplied, or applied for the wrong reason, they can ruin the structure and life of even the best soils. After a while, an over-chemicalized lawn gets no nutrition at all from the soil. It becomes totally dependent on synthetic nutrients - and on your willingness to purchase and apply them regularly. |
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