what should i do? one neighbor used trugreen chemlawn last year. the other neighbor just fertilized on her own. her backyard, which has NO grass, is covered in seed and little white pellets. i gave her a thing on organic lawn care last year AT HER REQUEST...and now, her kids are running barefoot through fertilizer. makes me sad to go in my own backyard. my only solace is that maybe, just maybe, all those worms and goodies will find refuge in our yard.

what can i do? nothing?

I hear you, autumn. Woods (thankfully) on one side of me, but the other side is inhabited by (some very wonderful, kind people....but) folks who loyally anti up to Lawn Doctor each year. Sad (and rather ironic thing) is that their lawn is..well, to be blunt: crap! Everytime that LD truck pulls in their driveway, and I'm outside in my garden, I have to run for cover inside the house and close all the windows. I can't breathe that garbage. It has (truly) made me quite sick in the past. And I don't want in wafting in the windows and permeating the air in my home! X-(

We just do the CGM thing for our lawn, and if there's some left over from the garden, we'll sprinkle a little kelp in the more stressed-out areas. Our lawn (if I do say so myself) is quite fantastic looking! Oh, sure there' a few weeds and pretty yellow dandelions. But, hey, that's all part of the "organic" or least harm approach, right? Gotta be willing to accept "less than perfect".

That's where the chem-dependent lawnkeepers fall short.
They want "perfect". At any price. But.......like my neighbor....his lawn is hardly perfect!!! :O

Ergo: what you should do about your neighbor. Like you said: NOTHING! Just let your garden and lawn speak for itself. Speak for "organics". Proof is in the results! Nothing sells a product or an approach or convinces someone to consider another way, better than positive results.

Enjoy your "safer" haven and hope that one day they'll come over and ask you just how DO you keep your stuff looking so good, when they never see a Lawn Doctor or ChemLawn truck pull in your driveway!

gardenz

How timely! I was just searching for info on alternatives to using fertilzer for the lawn. Any suggestions? What are the negative effects to using fertilizer?

If you consider "fertilizer" food, than there's nothing wrong with "feeding" your lawn or garden. But, like humans...sure we could "survive" on junk food..but we won't be very healthy! Synthetic ferts are (IMO) "junk food", or at least, steroids for the soil. Short, gigantic overdoses of synthetically derived sources of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. Give you a big bang for the buck initially, but don't provide a healthy root system and soil structure, able to withstand stress (i.e. drought, heat, disease).

The plants are only as strong as they soil in which they're growing, which is why it's necessary to concentrate on feeding the soil - not the plants!

Ok, enough on my soapbox. What I use for feeding my lawn is corn gluten meal in the spring and again in the fall.
http://www.gluten.iastate.edu/

Initially, we started using it as a weed seed suppressant. But, it contains about 12% nitrogen so that the extra "food" part. If you've got enough compost to spread around on the lawn, that's great. If not, then Kelp Meal is a wonderful substitute (and my personal favorite).

When all else fails, we've ordered WOW plus from Gardens Alive, which is the corn gluten meal with some extra phosphorous and potassium. Complete "fertilizer" and weed suppressant in one.
http://www.Gardensalive.com

Other than that, we mulch the grass and one week the clippings go in the compost pile, the next week they just stay on the lawn (to feed it yet again).

gardenz

Not that I'm really into the grass "thing" but haha! The kick I get by going outside and seeing how green and thick my grass is compared to the chemical addicts next door and across from me .The guy across from me rented a liquid dispenser for weed and feed that you pull behind a lawn tractor and he has these big green streaks all over his yard it looks really stupid wish I could post a picture you guys would enjoy it also!The only thing I do for my grass is dig out the big thistles in the spring and my dad comes by to mow when needed (he's retired and really bored)thank goodness saves me some time plus my allergies really go wacko with grass mowing> Willow

The very idea of applying this 'junk' unto my lawn, in light of the animals we keep, plus my 7 1/2 grandchildren does send shivers up my spine.

When I moved out to Coon Rapids Minnesota, in 1976, I used chemical weed killer. I used a water spray gun. Just the year before I had planted a little Plum tree. The overspray almost killed that tree.
I swore off ever using that again.
That's when I read my first copy of Organic Gardening.


Where we live in Anoka county is mostly just sugar sand, with a little top soil. I started making copious amounts of compost, as we have many Oak trees. I also went into rabbit raising. What fun! What fertilizer!
By the time we moved out of there in 1989, we had about 12-18" of good top soil in the garden. And at least another inch on the lawn. But the best thing that I did for the lawn was, start mowing it very high. 3-4" inches.
Oh I got arguments, then 'you'll have to mow more often'.
That's illogical!
It has a taller plant that holds more nutrients, plus it sends the roots deeper. And it stays green. Who wants yellow grass?

Then I quit bagging the grass clippings about 12 years ago. The 'Gator' blades on my John Deere riding mower really chop 'em up small.
We also cool our house with a ground water system. All of this 'waste water' goes back to the yard and garden.
I have used some organic lawn fertilizer, and I apply lime as well.
We have the at least as good of a lawn as anyone in the neighborhood.

As far as weeds in the lawn go, my philosphy is; if it's green, it's welcome.

Just what is the reason we have lawns? Keep down the dust & dirt. Keep it outa' the house?
It's attractive.

As far as Dandelions go, a friend once told me that the best way to deal with them is; 'just enjoy the pretty yellow flowers in the spring for a coupla' weeks'
I also let area's of my lawn go wild with some native flowers and grasses. They are just as beautiful as any 'real' flowers are.
Yes, I'm still considered a 'nut' But I'm a happy nut.

During my marriage we lived in a gorgeous old suburban neighborhood full of big turn-of-the-century houses with big big yards, from 1 1/2 to 2 acres each. The street is more a boulevard, very wide and tree-lined, with sidewalks, quite idyllic. But people on this street were and still are obsessed with The Perfect Lawn. Once a week in the summertime up go the little yellow signs with skulls and crossbones on them to alert residents that the Chem Armies have been at it again. Depressing, creepy and frightening.
The birds don't come to these homes anymore, and these people have created a monster with more bug and grub problems than you can shake a stick at.
I kept my own yard natural and established a meadow on a good portion of it for the birds, bugs, butterflies and bees, along with a few fruit trees, etc. There's a fringe of woods on one side which I let go on its own, leaving deadwood and scrub for the critters. Within one year we had a thriving eco-sanctuary from the chemistry going on around us. Luckily our immediate neighbor whose vast swath of lawn adjoined ours was the only other resident who refused to chem anything, so between us we had about 2 1/2 acres of cleaner habitat.
This street has an abnormally high cancer rate in residents of all ages, far above the "average", including many rare and/or weird cancers, and I'd be hard-pressed to not hold the Chem Armies at least partly responsible for that. Yet, you can't talk organic to these people at all. You're just banging your head against the wall.

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What a story, Beebop. Have you considered a letter to the editor of your newspaper? Or any other way of publizing the situation?

Yes, I wrote locally about it, and the cancer thing on the street has been looked at and well-documented by both local and State health authorities. But it's really tough to get residents to stop bad practices, as I'm sure everyone here knows. It comes down to their personal choices for their property, as opposed to a Love Canal or a PG and E corporate thing. Why anyone would choose to chem is entirely beyond me - does looking out one's window upon a dandelion-free lawn while recovering from or dying of cancer make it all worth it? It's crazy.
I was able to change one neighborhood mind and one only, a friend whose son ended up with cancer at the age of eleven. He did recover, and they moved away to a cleaner place.
It's nuts, what people will do and the bills of goods they're willing to be sold by the chem world, and it's, weirdly, a hard thing to change or to fight.
My own ex-husband was one of the cancer people. There is zero history of cancers in his family, zero. He has recovered completely but it was rough indeed.
Such a beautiful place, with such a dark thing lurking and easily preventable if people would just quit worrying over every little weed and grub.

Hi Folks, Don't have the problem at the moment. An empty lot on one side, and an empty house on the other. This could change at any time though since both properties have been for sale for some time. Which is why I'm asking how far can that garbage leach? Love, Jackie

Jackie, you'd have to do some research on the leaching issues, there are so many factors. The chemistry itself, how it travels, how it breaks down if it does break down, rainfall patterns, geology, etc., etc.
Airborne particulate and drift are always key players - although my next-door neighbor and I maintained cleaner habitats, we were well aware that they couldn't possibly be entirely clean because of drift. You can smell it in the air on chem days, it's IN the air, it moves. I once found a grown wild rabbit dead for no apparent reason on my grass, malformed, obvious physical birth defects. No one can tell me that chemistry was not responsible.
It's your water table, but it's also the air you breathe.

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