Lawn & Garden
Why Organic?
10 Reasons to Ditch Your Lawn and Garden Chemicals
• Long
version with references
Why are ponds and harbors suffering from overgrowth of plants? It starts on your lawn!
Commercial Fertilizers contain FIVE TIMES more nitrogen than your lawn needs. Download the GreenCAPE Fertilizer Table and read the labels on your products. Notice the difference between amounts of nitrogen from a biological source and a chemical source. GreenCAPE Fertilizer Table
Keeping your lawn attractive and pest-free the healthy way
By replacing all or part of your lawn with a native ground cover and using indigenous plants in your landscape, you not only help the environment, you help youself. Native landscapes, or “Greenscapes,” require less nurturing than exotic ones, which means you can spend less time weeding and watering. What’s more, native plants have adapted over time to local conditions and grow more vigorously, so you can avoid using harmful synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and large quantities of water; this improves water quality, increases biodiversity, reduces maintenance costs and protects your family’s health.
Using organic soil amendments and certain cultural practices to create a healthy lawn and landscape eliminates the need to use pesticides and quick-release high nitrogen fertilizers that pollute the Cape’s coastal estuaries and embayments. Nitrogen loading in embayments causes excess algae growth that shades out eelgrass and results in the destruction of valuable fish and shellfish habitat. Pesticides have been implicated in acute poisonings, chronic diseases (such as cancer) and developmental, neurological and behavioral disorders in children.
As you maintain your lawn and landscape, maintain your perspective as well. Remember that dandelions don’t pose a health risk to your family and pets--but pesticides do.
Soil Basics for a Natural Lawn
Soil is key to establishing a lush sustainable lawn. A lawn is made up of thousands of individual plants. Plants need good soil to thrive and be healthy. Healthy plants extract nutrients from the soil that make them strong and able to survive harmful insects and diseases and competition from weeds.
6 inches of good loam are needed to develop a healthy soil. Don’t accept sand or clay mixes labelled as loam. If you use 6 inches of good loam as a lawn base you’ll have fewer problems altogether. If you don’t have 6 inches of loam, build up to it by adding compost, good quality loam, or a mix of both. Add ½ inch of loam/compost twice a year to your lawn until you build up to 6 inches of well draining soil.
Get a complete soil test before adding nutrients or lime. Adjust pH to 6.5 (preferably with calcitic lime). If your soil shows < 5% organic matter, apply 1/4”-1/2” of finished compost every fall.
Plant a MIX of grasses - e.g. fine fescues with perennial rye and small amount of bluegrass that is endophytically enhanced for dealing with chinch bugs, billbugs, and sod webworm. A turf monoculture does not compete as well against weeds as a mixture of grasses. If your lawn area is shaded-consider various low maintenance native ground covers instead of grass. You reap what you sow.
Use organic 3-1-2 fertilizer at the rate of 1 lb. per 1000 sq. ft. (at least 1/3 should be in water- insoluble form) if you are also fertilizing with compost and grass clippings. Don’t feed with synthetic chemical fertilizers. Don’t over fertilize-it can create juicy, succulent blades vulnerable to disease. If you live by a water body-don’t fertilize at all.
Natural Lawn Maintenance
Maintain your lawn by using cultural practices that favor grass over weeds. Below are some hints for keeping your lawn healthy and attractive without using harmful pesticides and polluting chemical fertilizers.
Cut the grass no shorter than 3” high and don’t cut more than 1/3 of the leaf blade at any one time. Don’t be tempted to cut shorter. Good mowing practices are key to inducing deep root growth and shading out weeds. University studies have shown this can control certain weeds as well or better than herbicides!
Cut only with sharp mower blades. Resharpen blades after every 8 hours of use. Dull blades tear grass rather then cutting it cleanly. Torn grass blades are more susceptible to disease.
Leave grass clippings on the lawn . This adds nitrogen and stimulates earthworms. Chop leaves with your mower and leave them on the lawn, too.
Water deeply but infrequently to encourage deep roots; too much water invites fungal disease, shallow roots and root rot. As soil organic matter builds up less (or even no) water will be needed. Automatic watering systems can waste water and promote disease if not timed correctly or tailored to actual weather conditions. Never water at night.
Alternatives to Chemicals
Pesticides and synthetic fertilizers can kill beneficial critters like earthworms, ladybugs, honey bees, butterflies and other pollinators; they pollute water supplies as well. There are many effective alternatives to using pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.
Use corn gluten to suppress crabgrass and other weeds. Make sure to apply corn gluten early in the year (when the forsythia is blooming) before weeds emerge. Spread only on established lawns at 20 pounds per 1000 sq.ft. It also contains 10% Nitrogen - so factor that in if you also fertilize. (Be sure no people or animals in your home have an allergy to corn.) Use 1:1 vinegar to water mixture to kill weeds; pull the rest before they go to seed; flame weeds in walkways.
Correct thatch buildup by cutting back on water and fertilizer and eliminating pesticides. Spread a light layer-3/8”-of compost over the lawn. Compost microbes will break down the thatch and also suppress disease. Aerate, if necessary.
Use Grub Guard (beneficial nematodes) or Milky Spore for control of grubs .
Don’t use pesticides(herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc). -Cides suppress the soil’s biological activity which in turn reduces it’s ability to suppress pathogens (disease-causing microbes); -Cides also kill earthworms which build and aerate the soil. It takes a while for some soil microorganisms to get over a hit with pesticides; some species never recover-leaving your soil vulnerable to further disease and infestation. You may undo all your other good lawn practices by applying pesticides.
For the Bees-- Pollinators in Peril
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List of Bee Forage Plants (download in pdf)
from Grist.com ("a beacon in the smog")
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http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-12-10-leaked-documents-show-epa-allowed-bee-toxic-pesticide-
"It's not just the State and Defense departments that are reeling this month from leaked documents. The Environmental Protection Agency now has some explaining to do, too. In place of dodgy dealings with foreign leaders, this case involves the German agrichemical giant Bayer; a pesticide with an unpronounceable name, clothianidin; and an insect species crucial to food production (as well as a food producer itself), the honeybee. And in lieu of a memo leaked to a globetrotting Australian, this one features a document delivered to a long-time Colorado beekeeper. All of that, plus my favorite crop to fixate on: industrial corn, which blankets 88 million acres of farmland nationwide and produces a bounty of protein-rich pollen on which honeybees love to feast...."
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Pesticide Action Network Petition to Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator
http://action.panna.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=5370
Useful Information (view or download as pdf)
Basic Alternative Product List for the Gardener The least toxic options for your yard, garden, lake and you, compiled by GreenCAPE, includes where to find it info.
Fertilizer Table a comparison of chemical and biological fertilizers compiled by GreenCAPE.
Lawn & Garden Web Sites
Local Landscapers--our list. Let us know if we missed anyone
Organic Land Care, NOFA Accredited Organic Land Care Professionals. Searchable db
Cape Cod Organic Gardeners Our hardworking local group. Read the newsletter online.
safelawns.org by Paul Tukey, founder and publisher of People, Places & Plants magazine.
NOFA/Mass NOFA/Mass
is the Massachusetts chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming association
and welcomes everyone who cares about food, where it comes from and how
it is grown. It holds conferences and workshops to train and certify people
in organic methods.
Where to buy organic seed www.seedalliance.org/index.php?page=Seed_Companies_Selling_Organic_Seed
Plant
List for Ecological Landscapes on Cape Cod www.town.orleans.ma.us/pages/orleansMA_conservation/native
From the town of Orleans website, a very helpful list to take to the garden
center. Printer friendly!
Organic Gardening "101" What is Organic Gardening? Great overview site.
Compost Happens!
Florida 's Online Composting Center has a Quick Tutorial and
a more detailed "Compost Happens!" Tutorial (about 20 to 40
minutes). The Virtual
Pile calculates the carbon to nitrogen ratio for you. Many
other info goodies.
Pest Management
For the Organic Farmer. Loads of alternatives to pesticides that
farmers and lesser mortals like me can use.
Pest
Problem Solver- from Planet Natural(Good Stuff for Your World!)
See pictures, descriptions and a complete list of earth-friendly remedies.
Be sure to see the Beneficial Insects section with photos.
www.planetnatural.com/site/pest_problem_solver.html
Pest Control Solutions Chart from Peaceful Valley Garden Supply " provides a cross-reference between the pests being managed and the products (beneficial insects, physical controls, biologicals, mineral soaps & oils, botanicals, mineral fung iCape Cod Worm Farmcides) that help to control them." From Algae to Yellowjackets. Download as pdf by clicking on the chart name in the first sentence.
Beyond Pesticides www.beyondpesticides.org "Beyond Pesticides (formerly National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides) works with allies in protecting public health and the environment to lead the transition to a world free of toxic pesticides." from website
Watch Chip Osborne of Marblehead's presentation to the Barnstable County Commissioners (5:52 minutes into the meeting.) www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfJcMecmrPQ
The
"Living Lawn" Demonstration Project in Marblehead 1999-2000.
A summary of the project and what it proved.
Marblehead Organic Pest
Management Policy for Turf and Landscape 2001(download as pdf).
A model for every town and city in the nation.
More Information
Before you buy Scott's brand lawn products:
"Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 13 are probable or possible
carcinogens, 14 are linked with birth defects, 18 with reproductive effects,
20 with liver or kidney damage, 18 with neurotoxicity, and 28 are sensitizers
and/or irritants. Of those same 30 lawn pesticides, 17 are detected in
groundwater, 23 have the ability to leach into drinking water sources,
24 are toxic to fish and other aquatic organisms vital to our ecosystem,
11 are toxic to bees, and 16 are toxic to birds."
If you can Venn Diagram that sentence, contact the Harvard Math Department.
They want you. Find out more at Beyond
Pesticides.org
Common Sense Pest Control - Least Toxic Solutions for Your Home, Garden, Pests and Community, by William Olkowski, Sheila Daar, and Helen Olkowski, 1991, Taunton Press
Where to buy Organics
First, join the local Cape Cod Organic Gardeners, and your Membership entitles you to purchase soil amendments from NOFA at reasonable prices. ccog.wordpress.com
Check the GreenCAPE Local Landscapers List
Hyannis Country Garden has an Organic Club; save 10% off your purchases by joining.
Matt's Organic Gardens (not a link) Specializing
in heritage tomatoes and other organic vegetables and small fruits in
season. Year round retail/ wholesale sales of organic fertilizers, soil
ammendments, insect & disease controls, quality compost in bulk.
36 Upper County Road
Dennisport (508)364-5129
Cape Cod Worm Farm The late Maggie Pipkins founded this excellent business and really believed in the value of earthworms in yards and gardens. Visit the Buzzards Bay location.
BioControl Network Like so many others, lots of info and products as well for the chemically concerned citizen.
Peaceful Valley Garden Supply Offers books, fertilizers, seeds, tools and more for the organic consumer.
Gardens Alive A bountiful mail order source for all your organic gardening and pest control supplies.
MyDandelion.com Whoops. These folks did give us a few bucks but they are SO cool. Check it out.