I’ve owned my LEHR Eco Trimmer for three years now. I did a review back in 2009 that ended up being posted on this blog in 2010. Anyway, I still am a big fan of the LEHR just as I was back then. It’s definitely a”green” product that that goes right along with our theme here of Organic lawn care… but there is a lot more than that.

First off, propane is very clean just for my own comfort – no fumes like with a traditional gas/oil mix trimmer. I don’t have to pour the gas – which is something I always had a problem with since I could never find a funnel when I needed it… so with propane, no more spills. In addition, no leaks. Pretty much every gas trimmer I have ever owned would leak when the cork wore out around the gass cap.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Over the years, I have replaced the original LEHR Trimmer head with a fast loading trimmer head and also I use a John Deere edging attachment. That is another advantage here is that the LEHR trimmer CAN use other attachments.

Long story short, the LEHR has stood the test of time for me. It’s quality has proven to be long term. Three years strong and still going with no problems – that is quality.

Powdery mildew is a lawn fungus that creeps into Northern lawns often in the Spring. I did a quick video here to show you some tha I found in my lawn this last weekend.

Watch this video on YouTube.

So you can see that this lawn problem is not serious and all you need to do is catch our grass clippings when you mow and mow tall. Other than that, don’t be concerned about it!

Landscape Contractors in Crown Point Here

James from Illinois asks: “How much fertilizer do I put down on the lawn when I am fertilizing?”

(There is also a step by step video down below in this post)

That is a question that I get a lot and for good reason: it’s important. If you put too much fertilizer on your lawn, you can surely do damage – to your root system, to your soil and cause major overgrowth that will thin the turf out. On the other hand, if you apply fertilizer but don’t use enough, you won’t get the right results and end up wasting your time. Not only that, your lawn won’t be as healthy as it could.

In this article I will tell you exactly how to know how much fertilizer to put on your lawn when you apply.  There is also a video to go along with it, in case you are more visual (which in this case, the video does a much better job explaining IMO)

How Many Pounds Of Fertilizer Per Square Foot?

We typically measure application rates on a 1,000 square foot basis. This way it’s fairly simple to keep track. And that is the key: knowing how to TO apply, and knowing how much you DID apply as a double check. When you are finished spreading, you should be able to have confidence that you indeed did put down the correct amount of product. So we first need to understand the size of the turf area to be treated, and then understand how many pounds of fert to apply per 1,000 square feet of grass -  Here’s how you do it:

Watch this video on YouTube.

Measure Your Lawn

Get a long tape (or measuring wheel) and measure the length and width of the area to be fertilized. Now, I realize that not every lawn is a perfect square so you may need to measure sections and add them together. In the video here, my neighbor’s lawn is 75′ x 50′.

So to figure out the lawn square footage, you multiply the length x width and you get 3,750 square feet.

Pounds On The Ground

Now look at the bag of fert you have. In my example, I am using Milorganite organic. It’s a 36lb bag and says that it covers 2,500 square feet. So let’s figure out the recommended amount to apply per 1,000 square feet. It’s pretty simple, just some simple math.

36 / 2.5 = 14.4

So that means the recommended amount of Milorganite to apply is 14.4 lbs per 1,000 square feet of lawn space.

Putting It All Together

In our example here, we have a 3,750 square foot area to be treated, and our “rate” is 14.4 lbs per 1,000 square feet.

3.75 x 14.4lbs = 54 lbs.

So we will need 54 lbs of Milorganite if we want to apply the right amount. The bags I buy are 36 each, so I will need two and have some leftover when I’m done. If this all seems complicated, it’s not. In fact, you only have to do this math one time if you use the same fert on each lawn application. It’s important guys – so get it right!

Use The Instructions On The Bag

Lastly, don’t go getting cute and try to adjust the amount of fert based on your own opinions. Whatever fertilizer you use (I recommend organics like Milorganite) just use the rate that is recommended on the labeling.

Also keep in mind that organic fertilizers do require ALOT more be applied when compared to their synthetic counterparts. 14.4 lbs of Milorganite per 1,000 square feet is a lot of fert! If you were to use a synthetic fert and get comparable nitrogen in the application, you’d only need around 3lbs per 1,000 square feet of lawn space. That’s a big difference.

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Ok, so we’re taking a break from the organic lawn talk and moving into something fun that you can do this weekend!

Stripe your lawn like a golf course fairway

You’ve seen golf courses with those beautiful fat stripes down the fairways. You’ve also seen them in outfields during baseball season. So how to they get those stripes like that?

Well, in most cases they are using a reel mower. This is one where the blade turns like a rolling pin instead of spinning like a ceiling fan (like your home lawn mower). In addition, those mowers have rollers on them. The combination of the reel blades and lawn rollers press the grass in a direction so the sun reflects on it differently than grass that has been pressed in the opposite direction.

The good news is, that you can make your lawn “lawn striper” and get very similar results without spending a lot of money. In fact, in this video, I show you how to make your own lawn striper for less than $10. It’s super easy and just look at the results!

Watch this video on YouTube.

As you can see, this is a very simple way to make stripes in the lawn. The key is to make two passes in the same direction each time. This way we get BIG FAT stripes. it does take a little longer to mow the lawn doing it this way, but look at the results!

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Where I live in NW Indiana, we get some freaking snow! In fact, some winters I have to sit back and wonder why the heck I still live here, LOL. Anyway, because of the amount of snow we get, I have to have a snow blower to clear my driveway and sidewalks with.

When I first moved into this house about 7 years ago, I went the quickest and simplest route and bought a gas powered single stage snow blower. It was a Yard Machines brand and worked well. However, I gotta be honest: the fumes were nasty bad and it was a pain in the butt to manuever. Plus, I hated having to add stabilizer to the gas at the end of every winter and store it.

So this year, I bought an electric snow blower, the Snow Joe SJ620 18-Inch 13.5-Amp Electric Snow Thrower. I bought it because it was under $200 and required no gas, so no fumes! That is eco friendly, and also cheap! Here is the review I did on YouTube.

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I have always taught you guys that the way to have a healthy organic lawn is to first start with healthy lawn soil. If you can get your hard-packed and basically sterile clay soil to be alive with bio-organisms, you can have a nice lawn that will stand up to the test of time.

How To Soften Clay Soil

There are a couple ways to soften up and improve the clay soil that is the foundation of your turf. The first one and best one (because it requires no chemical or anything resembling a chemical) is to have the lawn aerated. Aerating your lawn  is a process whereby cores of soil are removed from the lawn. The result is the clay soil is literally “aired out” and water and nutrients are able to penetrate into areas that were previously hard and compacted.

I recommend you aerate your lawn every single year, however, if you can do it in the spring and the fall, all the better. Of course, after you aerate, you should also throw down some fresh grass seed.

The next thing you can do is use liquid gypsum. It’s a very easy to apply product that does a lot of the same things that an aeration will do. The natural ingredients in the liquid lawn aeration will literally penetrate into hard clay soil and help bring in fresh air and nutrients. It’s best to use the two of these strategies in conjunction with one another.

But I realize that a lot of you are not able or willing to go and rent and aeration machine and then spend labor hours using it… I get it. So using the liquid lawn aeration in the form of liquid gypsum is a great alternative that works. Get It Here.

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