Soil for organic lawn

[Bullfrog44]

Like the title says, what is good soil for lawn? I am installing new lawn in my back yard and want to put good organic soil down first. Reason to keep organic is I like to use lawn clippings for composting. The soil there now is fairly good, so I was thinking of amending with a yard of compost and maybe some alfalfa for N. Maybe some rock minerals. Anybody else have any info?

I was thinking of also watering with ACT a couple times a week to get the roots going.

 

[mad librettist]

You need paul tukey's book - the organic lawnn care manual.

 

[Bullfrog44]

You need paul tukey's book - the organic lawnn care manual.

 

[xmobotx]

you can apply all this living soil advice; you can grow whatever you want in living soil FTMP

 

[mad librettist]

you can apply all this living soil advice; you can grow whatever you want in living soil FTMP

And don't forget the micro clover!

 

[xmobotx]

clover is frequently included in grass seed mixes for just that reason

all them living soil techs can be applied but since outdoors, no worries on aeration - lol assuming good drainage

 

[redneck shogun]

A lawn? How about an edible landscape?

 

[h.h.]

Grass requires a lot of fertilization. When you remove the clippings, you remove the nutrients. Cutting on a weekly basis removes them rather quickly.
I'd start with cuttings from the neighborhood. Check for herbicidal use though it won't really effect future grass or cuttings.It will probably have been chemically fertilized but the nutes it contains will be the same as organic ones. Nitrogen is nitrogen.
You're not organic yet you have still done right by the planet. Better than organic.
Mix in some manure, spread it out,and hit it with some bacterial tea. The biology will take over. Use a mulching mower, mowing in trace amounts of manure on occasion.
In 3 years, you can claim to be as organic as any farm in California.

 

[VerdantGreen]

lawns grow best on sandy well drained soil, you dont want loads of organic matter in it because it will sink as it is used up. lawn topdressing is about half sand and half topsoil so that gives you a good idea of what grass likes. microclover is quite good as it stays green in dry weather for longer than grass does.
its worth spending a good while levelling your area. if you've dug it over then you need to tread it back down again so as its quite firm with no air pockets. ideally you should leave it a couple of weeks for the weeds seeds to germinate and then hoe them off and rake flat again. rake in one direction and then go over it again at 90 degrees to that direction

VG

 

[Bullfrog44]

lawns grow best on sandy well drained soil, you dont want loads of organic matter in it because it will sink as it is used up. lawn topdressing is about half sand and half topsoil so that gives you a good idea of what grass likes. microclover is quite good as it stays green in dry weather for longer than grass does.
its worth spending a good while levelling your area. if you've dug it over then you need to tread it back down again so as its quite firm with no air pockets. ideally you should leave it a couple of weeks for the weeds seeds to germinate and then hoe them off and rake flat again. rake in one direction and then go over it again at 90 degrees to that direction

VG

That sounds like good advice from somebody that has done this before. Thank you VG

Thanks to everybody, I think I know what to do now.

 

[h.h.]

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/organic/2004020829016580.html

 

[fungzyme]

I've also heard to use soybean meal for a slower breakdown N source.
The book 'Teaming with Microbes' has a section on organic micro-enriched lawncare, in case you have access to that book.

 

[mad librettist]

I've also heard to use soybean meal for a slower breakdown N source.
The book 'Teaming with Microbes' has a section on organic micro-enriched lawncare, in case you have access to that book.

that info all comes from paul tukey.

tukey goes way beyond general soil building. he discusses how to use natural methods to get a beautiful lawn.

if possible where you live, one great thing he recommends is letting the grass go all the way to seed once a year, rather than keeping it perpetually in a juvenile state. if you can't let it go to seed, let it get as long as you can, and you throw seed around to mimic self-seeding.

Microclover will be really great and should result in less green marks on your shoes than regular white clover. It also blends into the grass better so that it becomes invisible. Looks like monoculture lawn from a distance.

another big point from paul tukey is that weeds are messengers from nature telling you what is missing in your soil. for instance, a lawn short on calcium will have lots of dandelions. There is meaning behind every weed, be it unwanted clover or queen anne's lace. he urges people to not kill the messengers. instead, you heed the message and you fix the problem so your grass has the advantage.

then there is the critique of "aeration" using spikes, which compress as much as they loosen. however pulling plugs can be very effective, and if it's an area that develops puddles when it rains you can fix that with turface or calcined DE dropped into the cavities left fro plug pulling.

finally, i'll point out that you can get seed for grasses that have very deep roots. they are marketed as superior for organic lawn care regimens.

 

[SeaMaiden]

And don't forget the micro clover!

Or the dichondra.... <backs away from the bad dichondra thoughts>

We don't have suitable spaces for lawn, not to mention our heavy clay+rock doesn't exactly qualify as soil, so I'm focusing on building what redneck suggests--an edible landscape. It does appear that whatever the straw bales are sprouting (looks like wheat to me, but what do I know?) could be easily clipped down into a lawn-like configuration.

 

[fungzyme]

then there is the critique of "aeration" using spikes, which compress as much as they loosen. however pulling plugs can be very effective, and if it's an area that develops puddles when it rains you can fix that with turface or calcined DE dropped into the cavities left fro plug pulling.

finally, i'll point out that you can get seed for grasses that have very deep roots. they are marketed as superior for organic lawn care regimens.

Wow, that is a bunch of good info - thanks for that. I've already been reading about microclover and thinking about plugging and filling with some lighter organic mix (with some greensand to help break up my almost pure clay soil) but hadn't thought of using calcined DE. I'll look up Paul Tukey also. Thanks again.

 

[mad librettist]

if you look into management of sporting surfaces like baseball infields, you run across turface or axis/playball (DE). They can play sooner after rain thanks to the amendents.

 

[barnyard]

here's the "low grow-no mow" mix that I have planted in my hell strip:

~Ephriam crested wheatgrass
~Canada bluegrass
~perennial ryegrass
~hard fescue
~tall fescue

Its a cool weather mixture that goes dormant in the hottest months of the year. Clover generally needs more water than these grass varieties so is excluded. Clover also has a tendency to die out during times of low water, leaving bare patches in your lawn.

Compost or alfalfa applied in early spring and earl fall is the only fertilizer needed. This mix is not picky about soil and does will in clay or sand with clay being preferred because it holds water better.

Why not an edible landscape? Because it much more labor intensive than this almost carefree grass mixture.

 

[mad librettist]

Clover also has a tendency to die out during times of low water, leaving bare patches in your lawn.

check out micro clover. it grows in the sward, so if it dies back there is no bald spot.

 

[barnyard]

will do. thanks ml