Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your new home. My suggestion is to contact your county cooperative extension office ...they have many handouts that they will send you and there are Master Gardeners handeling the phones that also will verbally respond to your specific questions.

Here is a link that might be useful: Our pond and gardens

Laura,

I second Kareen's welcome. I also second her suggestion about contacting your county cooperative ext. I'm in the MG program for Oneida Co. and have volunteered in their offices. They do indeed have handouts pertaining to just about anything you could want to know about your yard, gardens etc. The MG who handle the phones will either answer your questions directly, or get back to you with an answer if they don't have the info you need right away. Good luck!

Hi all!

Thanks for the tips! I accidentally emailed Kareen privately. Still trying to get the hang of things. :) I contacted the Cornell Cooperative Extension first (Monroe County, where I live), and they referred me to Homedepot and Gardensalive.com. I haven't been able to find anything at Homedepot or Lowes, which is why I emailed them to begin with, and it looks like I will probably go through Gardens Alive, but I was hoping to find something local.

Laura :)

lawn care - crank the mower blades as high as they go, and leave the clippings.

apple care - try to find a book on backyard fruits by Lee Reich. He supposedly has an effective organic method for growing apples, but understand that this isn't a trivial undertaking. An IPM approach is much more realistic.

Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell Cooperative Extension

Lsythes,

We've used products from Gardens Alive for several years now, and been quite pleased. Their Wow Plus fertilizer/weed inhibitor is quite good, and works well on crab grass. We have a problem with rampant creeping charlie, and are considering contacting a local organic lawn care company next year. We can buy products from GA for most purposes, but it does get pricey, and paying a local business might save us time and $$$ in the long run.

If you're willing to tolerate some non-grass ground cover in your organic yard (and what organic gardener doesn't like a little diversity?), you might want to oversow your grass with white clover (but NOT at the same time you apply the WOW Plus - it's a germination inhibitor). We have a lot of clover already. Our lawn wasn't a green velvet monoculture, but during our semi-drought this summer it was GREEN, which was more than could be said for most of our neighbor's lawns. . . .

Laurel