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While a pristine front and backyard can increase property value, a well-manicured, welcoming lawn also acts as the foyer of a home. But filling rough, sandy patches, reviving dying areas and constantly pulling up weeds are just some of the more common frustrations involved in lawn care. While maintaining a lush lawn can be challenging, there are ways to tackle these issues.
Composting is an organic lawn care hack that sees many yards thriving all year round.
Compost consists of nutrient-rich organic materials like yard waste, manure, recyclable organic material and some food scraps that have decomposed. You can purchase organic compost products or make your own at home using dead leaves, vegetable waste, food waste and grass clipping. Whichever approach you use, compost can be exceptionally beneficial to your lawn.
Compost is used as a topsoil or topdressing in organic gardening practices to treat and protect lawns. The decomposed organic matter is sprinkled over lawns seasonally, bi-seasonally or annually.
Adding a layer of compost in the early weeks of spring or later in the fall will prepare the grass for the next growing season, acting as an organic fertilizer. This simple action has several benefits to offer your lawn and the environment.
Composting encourages healthy lawns by offering essential nutrients that ultimately improve the structure and texture of the soil. These nutrients support ideal pH levels and enhance plant growth. Additionally, adding a layer of nutrient-rich organic matter to your lawn makes the soil airier and improves drainage, which aids healthy root development. Airy soil is essential for micro-organisms that live in the ground and provide additional plant nutrients. With healthier soil, your whole yard will thrive.
Red thread, leaf spot fungus, brown patches, snow mold, powdery mildew, fairy ring disease, leaf blight and leaf rust are just some common plant diseases that are challenging to treat. Red thread, in particular, is a fungal disease that causes thin, needle-like strands to extend from grass blades — these red needles then infect the grass blade all while germinating and spreading, inevitably overtaking entire lawns in a few weeks when left untreated.
At the same time, snow mildew or snow rot is another type of fungal disease that occurs when grass is left wet for too long and brown patch disease is caused by a fungus known as Rhizoctonia and causes large patches of grass to become brown and dead.
Composting prevents these diseases from compromising the health of your lawn. Because composting improves soil health and offers beneficial nutrients that encourage the growth of micro-organisms, which can produce antibiotic compounds, composting can essentially stave off plant diseases.
Compost reduces soil crusting by improving aeration and drainage. This organic lawn care hack maximizes water retention by improving soil health. Healthy soil can absorb water better and slowly release it to the grass. As a result, you won’t need to water your lawn as much.
However, with this benefit, it’s important to avoid overwatering your lawn, as this can cause grass to develop a shallow root system, which will make your lawn more susceptible to stress and plant diseases.
If you decide to create your own compost bin at home, you will save quite a bit on lawn care products that you will no longer need, like fertilizers and herbicides. And because composting improves water retention and drainage, you won’t need to water your yard as often, which will reduce your water bill significantly.
The process of composting aims to return organic matter back to the earth. Instead of gathering yard waste into plastic bags and sending them to a landfill, creating a compost bin makes it possible to feed these nutrients back into the ground. Composting also reduces the need for chemical fungicides, pesticides and herbicide products that aren’t so kind to the environment. These products might assist in staving off plant pests and diseases, but they also kill essential nutrients and micro-organisms in the ground, which makes it harder for plants to grow.
While you can purchase ready-made compost for organic gardening, you can also make your own compost bin with these easy composting guide steps:
You can also make a compost pile without using a container at all with the following steps:
With both composting methods, it’s important to consider pest prevention measures. You can cover the top of the bin with a plastic tarp to prevent pests from feeding on the decaying matter. If you opt for a compost pile, you should use a second fence to protect the compost from pests.
Once you have created your compost bin or pile, you will also need to prioritize maintenance.
Roughly once a week, you must use a gardening fork or shovel to turn the organic materials, moving matter from the bottom to the top. You must also add water to compost to maintain ideal dampness that supports decomposition. A compost bin should be watered in hot climates every other day, while regular watering is not as necessary in rainy climates.
If your bin is too wet, you can add shredded newspaper to soak up excess water and prevent mold growth. With this, try not to add more organic materials — waiting until excess water dries up is essential.
After seeding your lawn, use your hand or a shovel to sprinkle compost as topdressing, carefully adding more to problem areas to encourage healthy growth. Doing this once or twice a year is the easiest way to get a lush lawn. The compost will act as organic fertilization to feed your lawn essential nutrients.
You can also use a compost application to level lawns and encourage growth in stubborn areas where grass isn’t yet growing. Compost is exceptionally beneficial as a soil amendment.
If you’re switching to organic lawn care, OrganicLawns has tons of information on the science behind natural lawn care.
We offer a range of services we can tailor to suit your landscaping needs best — whether you’re struggling to revive your dying lawn, battling to get control of a persistent weed problem or want to have your soil tested, contact OrganicLawns to get a lush, vibrant lawn.
