ISFMA the Blog

If you want to establish an Organic lawn care regime and have it turn out well, you must create ideal growing conditions for the turf and plants to bloom. You will need to devote more of your time than just a spring application of compound nitrogen fertilizer bought from your garden centre.

Your Organic lawn care starts in spring with raking your grass with a metal Tyne rake which will eradicate the dead thatch at the base of the plants. By doing this you will encourage light, air and water to easily access the roots ensuring a healthier environment and a reduced risk of moss growth.

Try to keep your grass longer than usual, say 1.25 to 1.5cm which will allow the leaves to make more sugar from the photosynthesis process due to increased leaf surface area to feed the root system. You can also cut the grass without the grass box attached leaving the cuttings on the lawn surface. As the clippings rot, up to about 30% of the grass’s nutrients are released back into the lawn.

You must watch for the bigger weeds and dig them out with a long blade knife, but reseed as quickly as possible to prevent more weeds becoming established. A quick tip for you is to make grass plugs. By sowing seed into the base of a pot carrier which you can get usually free of charge from a garden centre, you can produce turf in the circles of the tray that hold the pots. Clip the turf with scissors as it grows through the season so any time you see an offending weed, you can dig it out and replace instantly with a turf making a hidden repair!

If you feel that the lawn needs a feed then remember your Organic lawn care regime and choose an organic foliar feed such as a seaweed compound which you could apply with a watering can or if you want to maximise the effect and minimise the work, get a Garden Sprayer which connects to your hose pipe and dilutes as you spray.

Garden Sprayers ensure an accurate constant dilution of the concentrate as you spray from your garden hose, and because you only carry the concentrate around, the most you’ll ever carry is a kilo or so, because the water comes down the hosepipe, therefore you don’t carry a 10 litre watering can up and down with you. Try to find a slow release organic fertilizer to apply or if not you can continue to foliar feed with your seaweed extract.

Your Organic Gardening management requires you to aerate your lawn approximately every three years. This involves you spiking your lawn with a garden fork every 15cm or so over the whole of the lawn to a depth of approximately six to eight cm or you could use a hollow Tyne which removes a series of cigar shaped cores from the lawn. By doing this you boost drainage, so minimising moss infestation and also allows you to add a top dressing of fibrous loam across the surface which is then swept into the hollows to improve the general condition of the soil below.

Mix up a batch of top dressing with 1 part peat or coir fibre to 4 parts good loam or Jon Innes number 1 to 2 parts sharp sand. Make enough to spread about 1.5kg / sq.m. You simply spread this evenly over the lawn and either sweep it in with a soft broom or use the back of your garden rake.