To achieve a beautiful lawn, you need to start at the source: the soil. Soil feeds your lawn, so when it’s healthy, there will always be nutrients for your plants to draw from. But if it is unhealthy, your grass will become stressed and starved, leaving it vulnerable to weeds and disease.
Learn how to improve soil to provide enough plant nutrition for a beautiful, thick lawn.
Know Your Soil Nutrients
There are 16 important nutrients for plants, nine of which are “macro” (i.e., needed in big amounts) while the rest are “micro” (only small amounts needed).
Three of the macronutrients come from water and air: hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen. The rest of the macronutrients and all of the micronutrients still need to enter the plants through the root system—that is, from the soil.
So, how does the soil get these nutrients? As part of the nutrient cycle, organic materials like manure or dead plants get broken down into the soil as nutrients by microbes and microorganisms. Those nutrients feed new plants, and the cycle continues.
Determine What Your Soil Is Missing
It’s hard to know exactly what your soil needs without first identifying what it already has. For example, Minnesota has high pH soils, so if you add high-pH fertilizers, you could potentially inhibit growth, which is the opposite of your goal!
To avoid this outcome, get a soil test done to determine if there are any imbalances or problems in your soil.
Reasons to Use an Organic Fertilizer
Once you know what your soil needs, it’s time to choose a soil fertilization method and pick a fertilizer that has the nutrients you need.
Synthetic fertilizers are often “quick-fix” options. These feed the plants immediately, making you think your lawn is fixed, when in reality, it has just made the surface look good. It hasn’t addressed the root problem, and the soil isn’t any better than it was, so it will consistently need more applications of synthetic fertilizers.
Organic fertilizers, on the other hand, promote healthy soil so that in the future you can spend less money and time on fertilizer, water, and weed control. Organic fertilizers deliver nutrients in addition to increasing microbial activity, which improves soil organic matter and overall health. Organic fertilizer can be applied year-round, but fall and spring are especially great times to give soil nutrients a boost.
This breaking-down process takes time, so be patient. Switching to an organic treatment, particularly after using synthetic fertilizers, can feel like it’s not working when you don’t see results right away. Working to fix these deeper issues takes time, but it’s well worth the investment.
Ready to Get Started?
The secret to a great lawn is the soil underneath. Replenish your soil’s nutrients and feed your lawn with an organic grass treatment from Organic Lawns by LUNSETH!
