There is a crop that most of us spend many hours on in the summer. We don’t eat it, sell it, or put it in vases, but most of us couldn’t image living without it. It is grass!
Somewhere along the way, we become imprinted with the image of the “perfect lawn.” Golf courses occupy the extreme end of the spectrum; most of us are happy with a lawn that is lush and healthy. For some, that means applying products to erase pests and uninvited plants. Such care creates the perfect canvas for a Saturday mowing.
But what about that mowing? The 54 million people in the U.S. who regularly mow their 30 million acres of lawn consume 800 million gallons of gasoline a year and account for more than five percent of urban air pollution, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. And we collectively apply 70 million pounds of pesticides to our yards, more than 10 times per acre what farmers use.
But pesticides and fertilizers don’t necessarily stay within the lawn’s bounds. The newly formed Vermont Green Lawn Coalition is trying to get the word out that healthy soil and clean water are inextricably linked. The lawn fertilizers and pesticides we apply can inadvertently travel throughout our watersheds, and while they may make a lawn look good for awhile, they can be detrimental in the long term.
According to Paul Sachs, owner of an ecological lawn-care company called North Country Organics in Bradford, Vermont, if you don’t have the soil functioning properly, you have to keep grass alive chemically, like keeping somebody alive in a hospital. “Soil is the plants’ digestive and immune systems,” he says. “If you don’t have a healthy soil, you’re constantly battling things with chemical suppressants. The more you use them, the more you need to use them.”
These chemicals strip the soil of the very elements it needs to stay healthy: the humus, fungi, bacteria, protozoa, and microbes working to break down rock into nutrients and keep the soil structured, with places for grass roots to grow and water to percolate. Just as farmers incorporate compost to build their soil structure, we “grass gardeners” need to address the “root of the problem,” so to speak: our soil health.
So how to start? Sachs recommends the screwdriver test. You should be able to drive the shaft of a 6- or 8-inch screwdriver into the turf with little effort. “If you can’t get it in more than an inch without straining, your soil is severely compacted,” says Sachs. “No amount of fertilizer or lime will fix it.” For mild compaction, application of well-composted material will enhance soil structure. For severe compaction, mechanical aeration of the turf is called for.
Sachs also recommends conducting a soil test, which can be done through the University of Vermont or the New Hampshire Cooperative Extension. Your soil’s pH should be anywhere from 6.0 to 7.5. If it isn’t, Sachs suggests some sort of fertility to feed soil organisms – organic fertilizer is good; mature compost is even better, especially if the ingredients are naturally derived. You’re goal is to feed the soil, not the grass.
A lawn with healthy soil, to which some compost and some organic fertilizer is added, will mostly take care of itself. You can de-turf and re-seed a really patchy lawn with a native Northeast grass mix or even a perennial groundcover that doesn’t have to be mowed. Maybe dandelions aren’t so bad – at least they attract pollinators to our yards, where they might visit an apple blossom or two.
Most importantly, while short lawns are nice and neat to look at, they’re also hard on the grass itself. By keeping your mower deck raised to at least 3 inches off the ground, your grass will be much hardier. It will stand up nicely to heat and dry spells, be less susceptible to most pest problems, and you won’t have to mow as often.
What about problems when they do occur? Dog-pee spots are caused by an overabundance of nitrogen. A little extra water will help flush the nitrogen more quickly. You can apply milky spore bacterium or beneficial nematodes to eliminate grubs, says Sachs, products that are available in garden stores and catalogs. When grubs leave, skunks and moles leave, too. Finally, bare patches can be covered with a layer of compost and reseeded.
With all the free time you’ll gain and money you’ll save by managing your lawn in an ecologically thoughtful way, you can enjoy your grass crop, knowing you won’t be contributing to the extra consumption of oil or the degradation of our air and waterways through excess fertilizer and pesticides. Your kids and pets will be safe from chemicals, and you will have the best-looking lawn in the neighborhood.