Hey Abileneblues, Thanks for posting your first year results. Your modest results are very credible. Second year should show improvement over the first as you fine youÂre your methods. Below is a link to pictures and information a member here has posted about his beautiful organic Bermuda lawn. Bill Hill

Here is a link that might be useful: Great Bermuda

To have the best looking bermuda is a big project. Check okcdan's site on billhill's link for details. If you want it to be real green, you will need a lot of protein on a monthly basis. If having the greenest lawn is not your priority, then you can use enough to make yourself happy. Even if you were on a synthetic program, you would need large doses of monthly nitrogen.

If you want it to look like a putting green, that is not that hard, but it is time consuming. You would have to mow with a reel mower every day at something less than 1/2 inch. If daily perfection is not necessary you can mow weekly. It really does look much better mowed twice a week, though.

Do you have any shade to deal with?

Congratulations! Anecdotal that may be...but it's believable because it reinforces my anecdotal experience as well (OK, the plural of anecdote is not data...but I'm willing to lighten up).

The second year (for me, anyway) saw more improvement. Nothing stellar, but faster than the first year and impressive enough for me to keep going. Dormancy hasn't even begun on the new (KBG) lawn, whereas my neighbors' are going down for the season and turning light green. This year I'm seeing a lot of worms, too, which I never did before.

Hi abileneblues,
Thanks for your observations. I also started using organics this year and cannot wait to see how the yard responds next year. Started composting and plan to spread some on the yard yet this year. Some folks I talk to about it seem to be "unbelievers" in the organic approach. Even the Lesco guy I talked to a couple weeks ago was asking me what alfalfa pellets would do for the grass. When my sprinklers were blown out this year, my sprinkler guy commented on the "dark dirt" that he saw in my yard (this was where a mole started enjoying the increased worm population-EGAD).

What I have also noticed is that during a rain, the worms are all over my driveway. In contrast, I was at a friends house after the same rain and there were no worms on his driveway. Not sure what that shows, but my neighbors probably thought I was very strange running across my driveway and putting the worms into the lawn/beds-he..he..

So glad I found this forum and can learn from others!!

katdog_turf: There is one argument that says if you have worms at the surface after a rain, then your soil is not softened down below. There is a hardpan layer that does not allow water to penetrate and the worms come out to avoid drowning.

Are you mulch-mowing at the highest setting and watering deeply? If so then you are really doing what you can to grow deep roots that penetrate the hard pan.

morpheuspa said something about being encouraged enough "to keep going" [with organics]. I don't want to change the theme of this thread, but I just can't imagine what it would take for me to go back to chemical based gardening. I finally have my entire yard in control and don't have a single worry about what might happen to it. If you don't insist on buying compost, the organic program is certainly cost competitive if not cheaper. I have not had any diseases (except when we pile up trash on the lawn and leave it). And my pest problems are gone (used to get scale, spider mite, aphid, earwig, and pillbug invasions). Life is good.

As for compost, if you are going to use it on your lawn, be sure you don't smother your grass. After you apply, if you can see it on top of the grass, you used way too much. Get a push broom and sweep and sweep until all the grass blades are sticking up above the compost. A good application rate is 1 cubic yard of compost per 1,000 square feet. But even that has to be swept in. Many people use a rake but if your grass has stolons (tillers and runners found in nearly all grass), then a broom works much better. You'll break your back with a rake. A leaf blower works well to move the compost off the surface and down into the grass, too. All you need is a dusting of compost.

"There is one argument that says if you have worms at the surface after a rain, then your soil is not softened down below. There is a hardpan layer that does not allow water to penetrate and the worms come out to avoid drowning."

That also can happen in loam/clay soils. I made spending money as a kid collecting nightcrawlers at home in NE Illinois. Collecting them after a heavy rain was a real bonanza! I sold the crawlers to a local bait shop for a penny each. I could buy a movie ticket for 35 cents and a huge bag of popcorn for 10 cents.

My Dad is an organic purist but doesn't know it. He uses good cultural practices, doesn't use pesticides, and fertilizes by mulch mowing his grass and leaves. He's been doing this for 60+ years. His KBG lawn is thick, dark green (but not as green as Midnight), has very few weeds, and is extremely drought tolerant. Also, he is blessed with soil that has always been cared for organically.

I spend much more time and money on my lawn. Our lawns look about the same.

-Deerslayer

Hi dchall,
I always mulch-mow.. have an Exmark 52" commercial walk behind that mows very well. Very interesting take on the worms. Before I started using Alfalfa pellets, soybean meal and coffee grounds, I did not see the worms on my driveway so assumed it had something to do with it. My soil is on the clay side so perhaps that has something to do with it. I am getting better with the deep watering, because until I found this forum I was not aware of the benefits. Hopefully, next year will be better and the years after that....

Thank you for the info

My guess is the worms have more to do with the organic practices. My uncle has been organic for years, and his driveway looks like a worm convention after a good rain. His lawn is the first to green up and the last to go dormant. The only issue with his lawn is that he mows too low and therefore gets weeds. For some reason, he can't stand the look of tall grass, so even though he knows that the lawn would be healthier taller, he still mows low.

morpheuspa said something about being encouraged enough "to keep going" [with organics]. I don't want to change the theme of this thread, but I just can't imagine what it would take for me to go back to chemical based gardening.

It's not really a thread hijack. We're discussing results.

At this point, I couldn't imagine what would make me go back, either, except perhaps something debilitating where I couldn't trundle across the lawn so often.

The differences seem to be increased water retention, decreased water stress, stronger growth, deeper green grass, shorter dormancy (for cool-season grasses, at least), better soil tilth, and a cleaner environment (well, somewhat at least).

Those are more than significant enough. The downside, for me anyway, is price. Around here, grain-based higher-volume feeding costs about two and a half times as much. All things considered, it isn't a high total, so I'm not put off by that.

I think your results just speak to, prove up if you will, the different mindset that is the organic approach. It is about improving the health of the soil.

That means starting to see it as a living thing. You feed the organisms and help them stay healthy and they feed the plants and keep the balance that avoids disease, etc.

So, just like a person, after you start nurturing it back from a drug dependance (chems) you have to kind of take it slow. And, just like with a person, you can do alot of damage to it quickly with one bad shot of drugs, spills, wrong food, etc.

Then, once you get the "organism" healthy, it takes less nurturing to keep it going well.

In my experience you kind of hit a nice healthy high after about three or four years but keep getting incrementally better soil year after year. Mother nature takes thousands of years to "build" some soils. Like a person, the "health" can kind of go up and down year to year depending on diet and weather.

So, welcome to the club, and keep on plugging away.

Abileneblues, would you mind sharing what you've done this year, other than the compost tea (and how often did you do that)? Do you think it's too late to do compost tea in zone 5? My soil is rock hard too (unless it's been raining), and I have always mulch mowed. I'd be interested in finding out what softened up your soil.

Deanna

Sorry about the delay in replying. We've been going through a remodel this summer that is almost finished. That's the big reason why I wasn't going for the putting green outside. Once the remodel started, the wife said "that's enough with the lawn."

In March I actually put down chemical fertilizer, but had been unhappy with the declining results I was seeing with the chemical program and started doing some reading.

Starting in April, I stopped bagging my clippings and mulch mowed.

In May, I applied a compost tea (not my own making, some brand from the garden store) and molasses.

In late June I applied SBM.

In early August I applied SBM.

In September I applied the compost tea and molasses again.

Along the way, I attempted to start mowing at the lowest setting on my (rotary, not reel) mower, but found that with the remodel going, I couldn't keep up with the 2 mowings a week that it needed, and I felt that I was cutting too much off at a time and stressing the grass, so I switched back.

The front yard is primarily common bermuda with little shade. On the other side of the drive, I have a larger tree that has SA under it, though the unshaded part of that section out near the street I sodded with TIF-419 (I think that's the one) Bermuda last year. I'm letting the bermuda and SA battle it out at the shade line, so that's an interesting (though slow) battle to watch.

I was initially worried about build up from mulch mowing, but that grass seems to decompose wicked fast now. Though we had mucho rain up until mid-August, I never saw any worms on the concrete. When I dig to plant something, I have worms out the wazoo, now. Earthworms, that is. Not wazooworms.

The backyard is pretty much the opposite. I have a huge pecan tree that shades most of the backyard and my neighbor to the west has a huge cottonwood that also shades it. It is primarily SA with a section on the east side (getting morning sun) that is common bermuda. The bermuda part is primarily in my dogs half of the yard where she is evidently running a mining operation.

I was not able to do as much with the back yard as much of the summer, parts of the back yard were covered with debris from internal house destruction and shingles from emergency roof repairs. In spite of that, the backyard has done ok. One section of the SA (about 10'X10') died out after being covered with debris for too long. I rarely mowed the SA (about once a month) and it seems to be happy. It seems to want to spread over into the perimiter flower beds readily enough.

Overall, I watered very little. As I mentioned, we had way more than usual rain and I don't water until the grass shows signs of needing it. It seems to be about every 2-3 weeks, depending on weather.

That's probably way too much info, but let me know if I missed anyone's question.

Forgot to mention. I sprayed for fleas and ticks along with that first chemical fertilizing, but have not re-applied since.

I did not find any ticks on the dog, but did notice that she did a lot of scratching. I have no way of knowing if it was fleas, as I've never seen or been bit by one. It could have been the skeeters which we had like the plague.

Hi everyone, thanks for all the great advice and here's my first year results. In spring, before organic approach I sprayed a bottle of synthetic fertilizer then I discovered this forum. Early summer I put down coffee grinds and mid summer to late summer I applied soybean meal (I had a hard time getting it initially). As per everyones advice I purchased a Weed Hound and went crazy with it at the beginning of the summer (I had ALOT of weeds). Barely watered (sorry) due to unusually shaped lawns and mowed high. Didn't need to use the Weed Hound much during hot summer months but used it again in the fall. Dandelion population substantially decreased (we'll see what comes up in the spring--I missed a few that went to seed) and my soil is AMAZING-dark and soft and crumbly where it used to be hard clay. Lawn looks the best ever, I am very pleased with the results. Mulch mow always and mulch mowed all my maple leaves (that was fun). Managed to convert one person at work to go organic (she was very motivated because her daughter has allergies and was pregnant) and convinced 2 other friends to get Weed Hounds and give organics a try. Can't wait until spring to get out there with the Weed Hound again and start sprinkling my soybean meal. Thanks again for all the great advice. I'll try to incorporater more of it next year.

sandyzz - sounds like you did things just right. I'm glad to hear that your soil responded so well. Next year, I need to find a way to get more OM in my back yard. It is primarily SA, but is so well shaded that the grass only needs cutting about once a month on most of it, so the mulch mowing provided little OM and the clay back there is still pretty hard. I'm mulching the leaves from my pecan tree and the neigbor's cottonwood, hoping that will add enough. I may get my neighbor's lawn guy to dump the grass he normally bags into a pile for my back yard.