The Easter Bunny will be hop hop hoppin’ into your yard soon not to mention precious tiny hands on an Easter Egg hunt. Ensure that each and every blade and leaf that gets touched is as natural and organic as possible with these eco-friendly lawn care tips:
Give your grass seeds a fighting chance – Instead of pouring on chemical-filled growth supplements, be sure your lawn is free of debris and use spike-thonged sandals to aerate instead of gas-guzzling machines. (You will keep pollutants from the air and get a workout in!) Use compost from your organic composting pile to fertilize or make your own.
Homemade Organic Fertilizer
4 parts seed meal or fish meal
1 part dolomite lime
1 part rock phosphate or ½ part bone meal
1 part kelp meal
Make your own organic pesticide – To repel pests from your lawn you’ll need a mixture with an appalling taste and smell. Create an oil, soap or vegetable based mixture to utilize within your garden.
Oil Mixture
1 c. cooking oil (canola or vegetable)
1 tbsp. liquid dishwashing soap with no additional additives
Dilute 2 ½ tsp. of the oil mixture with 1 cup of water. Spray on the surfaces of leaves.
Soap Mixture
Mix 3 tsp. of liquid dishwashing soap (with no additional additives) with 1 gallon of water. Spray on the surfaces of foliage to prevent the pests from feeding. To get a heavy infestation, spray every 3 days for two weeks.
Garlic & Pepper Mixture
½ c. hot peppers
½ c. garlic cloves
2 c. water
Combine ingredients in a clear glass jar and seal tightly. Place the jar in a sunny location and let it steep for 24 hours. Strain the mixture and spray on your lawn.
Make your own weed killer – Before the killing spree begins, it’s worthwhile to note that some weeds are more useful than their reputation implies. Plantain, for example, is a wonderful bug bite treatment while dandelion are actually nutritious greens that can be added to a healthy meal! Heck, you can even ground up dandelion roots and make some coffee.
But if you’re insistent on killing the weeds in your garden, consider a vinegar solution. The acetic acid in the vinegar burns the weed’s foliage on contact and temporarily lowers the pH of the soil which makes it hard for weeds to re-populate.
To kill weeds with vinegar, mix a tsp. of dishwashing soap with one cup of vinegar to help it stick. Spray or pour the vinegar mixture onto the weeds being careful to avoid any plants that you don’t want to kill. For best results, do this on a dry sunny day.
Go Beyond Grass – If it requires mass quantities of herbicides, pesticides and other lawn care maintenance to keep your lawn looking beautiful, think about alternative lawn covers such as moss, clover and even native plants. By investing in native plants, you can reduce the number of invasive species that you have to fight to maintain a healthy lawn and surrounding eco-system.
Use these how-to’s to keep your lawn lush and toxin-free! And ensure to enjoy an eco-friendly Easter with more tips from Green Earth News!
Source by Douglas Michaels Jr.