lawn care!!

[hpienkos]

Help with my lawn care!! I live in Ohio, the snow is now melting. We are in a new house we moved in this past august, the builder put seeds and straw down. And that was all we did with the lawn. Now spring is around the corner, what do I do with my lawn! There are patches of weeds, brown, some green, and of course my dogs poops. How do I go about the organic care of lawn? Plus i have a three year old, I dont want any toxic stuff on my yard! Any help would be greatly appreciated it!

[Laggie]

All we do is mow our lawn. We leave the clippings on it to decompose. Keep the lawnmower set fairly high, that way the lawn doesn't need as much water as it would if you cut it short...

Our lawn is the greenest on our block, and we have never fertilized it in 9 years! OTOH, we don't care about weeds in it - the front yard has a lot of moss and the rest of it has a lot of clover and buttercups...

It's not too clear from your post, though - do you have lawn, or dirt? As in, did the grass grow or die? Ours is well established so I don't know much about how to get a lawn to grow. We do always have bare patches after the winter, mainly from the dog, but they grow in fine once it warms up!

[philomom]

The trick I do is just to overseed with grass you like. Keep weeding or introduce a groundcover you like better. Chamomile works well in some areas.

I have never put down chemicals. Just water well in dry times.

[mumkimum]

In ohio also. My dh overseeds our lawn in either early spring (end of march) or late fall (late sept). Water the lawn a few times after doing this (not too long). You'll want to let the grass grow longer after doing this than you might let it go otherwise. Mow it & leave the clippings on the yard (they'll help fertilize). IF you feel the need for a fertilizer, there are plenty of natural-based fertilizers like alfalfa meal/worm compost/etc that you could seek out & basic garden centers will even have them.