This next season (2012) will be my first ever attempt to organic lawn care. I plan to feed mostly with SBM and Milo...as well as Soil Conditioner and Kelp Help.

Until now, I've been one of those 4-steppers. Question is, when feeding organically, do I apply 1lb N per application 3-4 times a year? Or do I apply more frequently at lower N levels? Or is the process even different than that?

If going monthly most normally use 20-30 lbs of soy per 1000sqft.

Milorganite at bag rate 4 times a year is enough also.

Are you looking to just feed the lawn or do you want to add extra to help build the soil up?

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simpson wrote:
Are you looking to just feed the lawn or do you want to add extra to help build the soil up?

To best answer that...Yes? For me, this is year one for organic lawn care, so I'm still a bit clueless as to what I'm "supposed" to be doing. I'm sure my OM can stand a boost. Unfortunately my soil test I did this past fall did not have a full report out, so there were no results listed for OM. Just pH, P, and K were reported. Of course I opted for the $5 "lawn" test on the form. The "full" garden test was $20 - hind site tells me I should've paid the $20. I'm considering redoing it as soon as now, provided December isn't a bad time to take soil samples?

As long as the ground is not frozen then you can sample any time you want.

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simpson wrote:As long as the ground is not frozen then you can sample any time you want.

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This is Bestlawn......dont let frozen ground stop you, take the hair dryer out there to warm the soil and dig away !!!

Lol I did not want to scare anyone away.

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Okay, so here's the form I filled out last time (which was my first time):
Click here for more information
If you look at the bottom RH corner of the first page it gives me options for different types of test and the respective costs. First time around I went with code1 for $8.00, which just gives results for pH, P, and K. If I spend $15.50 they'll throw in OM, Zinc, and Mg.

For the money, am I just better off going through Logan Labs or UMass that everyone on here talks about? Will they give me more info?

HanLawn wrote:This is Bestlawn......dont let frozen ground stop you, take the hair dryer out there to warm the soil and dig away !!!

Haha! I may be new, but don't put it past me to do this. However, my soil temps today are 41*F, so I can still get a sample without too much extra effort.

I'm all for supporting your local land-grant university, but their test isn't going to give you (or Andy, Morph and the rest) a full picture of what's going on with your soil chemistry. Go with Logan Labs (or UMass if you'd rather, though Logan has my vote & credit card number) and their analysis will be well worth the few extra dollars. (You want the $20 "Basic Test" if you order from Logan.)

The next thing is to get rid of the 4-Step mentality. It really isn't about how many pounds or how often you apply nitrogen - or any single other thing. I think about it in terms of keeping livestock - the uncountable numbers of microbes in a healthy, biologically-active soil. You need to keep the livestock healthy by giving them food, water and air and then let them cycle the nutrients for your plants. It's not really that simple (at least not for all of the plant-required nutrients), but it's a start.

Be sure to read the Organic Lawn Care FAQ, and then see about getting a copy of Teaming With Microbes. These will give you some more good basic information.

+1 I'm reading Teaming With Micros now. Very worthwhile.

For the money, am I just better off going through Logan Labs or UMass that everyone on here talks about? Will they give me more info?

Better? I don't know. But they use good tests, and we read hundreds of them and know what the results mean. If you pick a lab that we don't know, we aren't going to study the test procedures used for hours to figure out what we're seeing - we'll be more conservative and your plan will take longer to implement. We can't know every test suite from every lab (and they are FAR from the same, even if the numbers all say "PPM").

Okay, a couple updates. First, I got my soil sample taken yesterday (then woke up to 2" of snow, so good timing there). I'll be sending it to Logan Labs.
Second, since I live in the heart of farm country, I did some research today to find sources for SBM and CGM. This resulted in an interesting discovery. If I go to the local Organic Soil store, 50lbs of CGM is $47! At the local feed store, a 50lb bag of CGM is $25. If I get it from my farmer friend who buys tons of it by the truck load, 50lbs is $5!
The problem with CGM for me right now is that I plan to dormant seed in Feb/Mar. Since a feeding will be in order shortly after, I'll probably go with SBM or Milo instead in order to not risk the pre-m effects of CGM...I'm still concerned about crabgrass though, as it was a major problem in 2011.

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Hammbone wrote:I'm still concerned about crabgrass though, as it was a major problem in 2011.

Don't be. Pre em in the spring and pre em in the fall. Spot spray with crabgrass killer.

nothing0 wrote:
Don't be. Pre em in the spring and pre em in the fall. Spot spray with crabgrass killer.

I'm concerned for Spring 2012 because I'll be dormant seeding in late Feb or early March and I'm "guessing" (don't know for sure) that using a pre-M shortly after spreading seed may be a bad idea. I'm still new to this...so this may sound ignorant, but when do you guys typically put down pre-M? I'm guessing for me the timing will be around mid/late April? If I put seed down early March, by the time it goes through some freeze/thaw cycles, soil warms up, seeds germinate, and grass starts to become established, I'm not sure where that'll put me timing wise relative to the timing for pre-M.

Oh true. That is correct. You couldn't dormant seed and put down Pre-em at the right time (just before the Forsythia blooms as a general rule).
It would be a good idea to look at the tenacity threads. That may be the best idea for spring.

Tupersan pre emergent can be put down at/near time of seeding without hurting grass seed germination- it is rather expensive though, so start shopping for it now,waiting till you find a good deal,which may be possible as it is currently out of season.