The Providential Gardener

Lawns Are Gardens #2 -Organic Products & Further Information

Don't be daunted by today's other post on lawns. Just be prepared to attend to your lawn over the long haul, and eventually it will be routine, lower maintenance, and healthy for your family and your neighbors. And let's not forget the Bay and watersheds that don't need all the stuff we're broadcasting all over our lawns and sidewalks each year.

For further information, check out Safe Lawns. Here are some brands of organic fertilizers, pest controls, and weed controls. More are listed in The Organic Lawn Care Manual.

• Bradfield Organics
• Cedarcide
• Cutting Edge Formulations
• Woodstream Corporation

There are other products listed in The Organic Lawn Care Manual. I have not tried any of these products, and I myself am not recommending a specific brand. I am very impressed with the The Organic Lawn Care Manual, though.

The Garden Guys recommend Bradfield Organics on their weekly Sunday morning radio show (WHJJ 920AM - 8-10am), by the way. I've written to Bradfield Organics about local distributors. If any readers know where to buy organic lawn care products, please add comments to this posting! Many thanks.

P.S. I have discovered that Hattoy's Nursery in Coventry, RI orders from one of the wholesalers that supply Bradfield Organics. Also, A New Leaf on Gano Street in Providence orders from this wholesaler as does Fleming's Feed in Stonington, CT and Evergreen in Seekonk, MA. That means that these companies can add Bradfield Organics and other organic products to their next orders.

• Hattoy's Nursery & Garden Ctr, 315 Blackrock Road 02816 | Telephone: (401) 821-5549
• A New Leaf, 135 Gano Street, Providence, RI 02906 | Email or Tel: (888) 300-LEAF
• Fleming's Feed & Hardware, 769 Route 1, Stonington, CT | 860-535-3181
• Evergreen Tree & Landscape Service, 351 Oak Hill Ave, Seekonk, MA | Email or Tel: 508-761-5505

Lawns Are Gardens: Notes for Rhode Island Lawn-Gardeners

Have you mowed yet? Are you dreading the reemergence of those weeds, wishing your lawn looked better this year? Do you worry about the lawn chemicals and how they may affect your children or pets (or you, for that matter)? From every side we're hearing about organic or sustainable gardening practices, yet many of us are in patterns of routinely attacking the lawn's problems with chemicals. And after having the lawn overrun by the truly ugly crabgrass plant and successfully beating it back with fertilizers in bags or bottles, it seems like a good idea to continue with what works.

HOWEVER, as Paul Tukey points out in The Organic Lawn Care Manual, this is a "lawn on steroids," and all sorts of other problems arise from relying on fertilizers alone to deal with the weeds and insects that make a lovely lawn challenging to maintain.

The Organic Lawn Care Manual gives a 12-step plan for transitioning to a natural system over three years. I like the way the book takes gardeners (our lawns are made up of thousands and thousands of plants, and so lawns are a sort of a garden) where they are and clearly explains the whys and hows to get a beautiful, natural lawn, and all with less work and stress over time.

Here are the 12 steps for the first year of transitioning from chemical fertilizers and pesticides (p. 106):