Hi everyone,
I know this topic has been discussed already, but the search engine cannot seem to find the results for me.

I am interested in a 100% organic fertilizer program for my lawn. From the previous posts, this included corn gluten, alfalfa meal and many other ingredients usually given to horses or livestock for feed.

I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me - this is my first year moving from "natural" to "organic".

Thanks!
Cindy

All lawns need a sprinkling of compost and a protein fertilizer.

The compost supplies humus and microbes for building the soil and disease control.

The protein fertilizer adds extra nitrogen for greening the lawn and greater lawn growth.

Some of my favorite cheap protein fertilizers are 50 lb bags of regular plain corn meal, alfalfa meal (rabbit or horse feed), and grain meal cattle feeds.

If you are hesitant about mixing your own and want a premixed organic, you might try WOW from Gardens alive! Catalog.

IG -

Here are a couple links to past conversations here about this. Hope some of this is helpful.

http://forums.rodale.com/og/thread.jsp?forum=3&thread=200

http://forums.rodale.com/og/thread.jsp?forum=1&thread=9801

http://forums.rodale.com/og/thread.jsp?forum=1&thread=10320

http://forums.rodale.com/og/thread.jsp?forum=3&thread=11021

BG

Since we never have enough finished compost to spare for the lawn, in addition to applying CGM in the spring and again in the fall (which also supplies about 10-12% nitrogen), we provide an additional "boost" of other essential elements and nutrients with Espoma's Organic Fertilizer (Lawn Food)
http://www.espoma.com/default.asp?strPage=productinfo&intCategoryID=3&id=20
or we've also used Fertrell's Organic Fert. in the past: http://www.fertrell.com/

We used to use WOW and WOW Plus (from Gardens Alive!) but the S&H just killed us. So, it was necessary to find a local source where we only had to pay the tax.

Espoma is pretty widely available through retailers. Fertrell can be found at some stores, but may have to be ordered.

gardenz

Captain;
Do you mean just sprinkle cornmeal all over the lawn??

Absolutely! Any cheap, plain, corn meal feed product is a fine protein fertilizer for any lawn or garden.

You can get corn meal in 50-pound bags for about $5 at feed stores. The smaller the grind particles the better. The application rate is 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. In past years I've used corn meal, milo meal, cottonseed meal, oatmeal, and alfalfa. This year I'm adding soy meal to my repertoire.

Coffee grounds is a good free source of protein, too. The acid is washed out in the brewing process and places like Starbucks give the stuff away free.

Grasses seldom need a "spring" fertilizing since they have this propensity to grow vigorously in the spring. If you did not get the lawn fed last fall (the best time to feed grasses) an application of something that will give the lawn about 1 pound of actual nitrogen in June may be necessary. If you mulch mow the lawn, high, you will be putting back (from the clippings) 1/2 of the lawns nutrient requirement for the year and those long blades will manufacture a lot of the rest of the nutrients the plants will need themselves. The best time to feed a lawn is in late fall, early enough so the plants can store the nutrients for the winter and late enough so you don't encourage late season growth, like October or November. Timing is really important since I've had times when snow cover started in early October and stayed until late March.

The only exception I can think of is where heavy traffic in the lawn takes place. Yes, mulching mowers put back more than enough organic matter back to lawn soils for fertilizing and soil conditioning.

However, I have several places where my truck drives on a lot, that needs a lot of extra compost and grain meal protein foods to keep the Bermuda grass growing in the bad spots in the lawn.

Thanks everyone, for the information. It is great!

The one outstanding question I have is how much of alfalfa meal or bone meal to apply per 5000 sq ft. I know for CGM, but not for any of the other products. Any rules of thumb?

Cindy