• Feeding once in the fall promotes strong roots and healthy spring growth
– If you still need to fertilize GO ORGANIC
– If you spill fertilizers, sweep them up, do not wash them into the streets and storm drains.
– Avoid fertilizing before heavy rain or during long, dry spells.
– Never fertilize before April 1 or after October 15.
– Do not water your grass every night. This wastes water and encourages shallow root formation. Soak, at the most, once per week (about 1”)- and rainfall COUNTS!
– If you need to use a weed killer try Corn-gluten meal instead of a chemical. It is a by-product of food processing used to feed livestock that is also a proven killer of weed, seeds, and seedlings.
• BE CARFUL & READ THE INSTRUCTIONS, it will also kill new grass see
• use only on an established lawn
– Practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and GO ORGANIC!
– Make your own pesticide/insecticide.
– According to researchers at the University of Maryland, mowing cool-season turf grasses to 3 inches can work better than herbicides for suppressing crabgrass.
– Compost kitchen waste, garden clippings, and leaves.

Resources

Organic Gardening Books:

– http://homeharvest.com/organicgardeningbooks.htm
Federal Organic Certification Requirements
– http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/7/ch94.html

Other Useful Information:

– Corn Gluten Meal: http://www.gluten.iastate.edu/
– Home Harvest: http://homeharvest.com/
– Cornell Cooperative Extension: www.cce.cornell.edu
– Westchester County Water Quality: http://www.co.westchester.ny.us/
http://www.lvstormwater.com/bmps_landscape.html
– Gardener’s Supply Company: www.vg.com/community/GAmarch01.asp
– Connecticut Sea Grant Extension Program, Clean Waters, Starting in Your Home and Yard: www.seagrant.uconn.edu
– http://www.organicgardening.com
Important Articles
Human Alteration of the Global Nitrogen Cycle: Causes and Consequences, a report by the Ecological Society of America, www.esa.org/publications.htm.
Preventing Pollution Problems from Lawn and Garden Fertilizers, by the University of Minnesota Extension Service, www.extension.umn.edu.
Geballe, Gordon. "Redesigning the American Lawn: A Search for Environmental Harmony." Yale University Press