Letter from Toronto: The Look of Organic Lawns
written 4/15 If I didn’t know there was a pesticide near-ban in Toronto, I wouldn’t be able to tell from the look of lawns and parks around town. Since my parents still bike everywhere though he’s 81...
View ArticleVindicated Again: Protecting Seeded Areas with Row Covers
All right, so it’s probably a testimony to my inexperience and hubris that I thought this my idea, but I did think it so, and it turns out it’s not, because here and there in Minneapolis where I was...
View ArticleNorthern Lawns, Made in the Shade
I’m driven to write this because I saw something recently advising anyone trying to grow grass in the shade to use sod, not seeds. But the right seed mix will overcome most seeding problems, even in...
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Renovating My Lawn: ready, set–wait.
Having spent most of the past six months researching and writing about this topic (and yesterday writing about one aspect of it), I’m gearing up to put all my new theoretical knowledge into practice....
View ArticleThe Blessed Rain
It’s been raining pretty much full-time for three days now, sometimes lightly, often steadily, and occasionally with a vengeance. Once or twice there’s been a smattering of hail. And it’s not about to...
View ArticleThe Worst Amendment for Lawns: Sawdust. (Or, What I Learned Today #1)
Refusing to be scared off by unfortunate acronyms, I’m starting a whole series of posts to be titled What I Learned Today. This is the first. As you can see from the #1 in the title. Though I could...
View ArticleAshes: Almost the Perfect Lawn Amendment
The Soil Series # 3 Having gone on at some length a while ago (twice!) about how wood ashes aren’t going to cause lead or mercury or cadmium poisoning if you use them in your garden, I am now prepared...
View ArticleFertilizing the Earth to Death: Thomas Hager on Nitrogen
Got an e-mail recently from a very interesting fellow who’s just written a book about the chemistry and ecology of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, and if you haven’t had your fix of ecological chills...
View ArticleOrganic lawn care: a matter of definitions, or a moral dilemma?
I’ve got a question for all of you: Can an organic garden service that farms out toxic weed control still call itself organic? Has it sacrificed its integrity, its very soul, or is such language...
View ArticleSo—What’s wrong with lawns? Podcast #34
The Back Story I grew up in an apartment in Manhattan, so anything green seemed natural to me. It’s only much more recently that I’ve come to see lawns as man-made objects imposed on the...
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