Our friends at the Organic Horticulture Business Alliance, who have promoted several other SafeLawns events in the past two years, are back at it this weekend with a marque screening of our film, A Chemical Reaction, in Houston: http://houstongreenscene.org/green-houston-events/screening-chemical-reaction. The event, which hopes to attract several hundred people, will be held at the popular venue, Georgia's ...

The memory of my grandmother's glee during this time of year is rekindled every spring when the light green shoots of dandelions emerge from the soil. Gram would get out there and dig like crazy before the plants flowered and became too bitter to consume (comfortably). In Maryland this past Friday, some plants were already popping their yellow blossoms, which Gram would have gathered for her wine recipe (se ...

Company Confirms Intent to Sell Landscape Division As reported here in February, the parent of the TruGreen ChemLawn company intends to sell is land care division due to declining sales, according to a report published Wednesday in Landscape Management magazine. The same report also acknowledged that the customer count declined by 1.7 percent for the lawn care division, which primarily focuses on spraying o ...

PROGRAMMING NOTE: SafeLawns founder Paul Tukey will be a guest of Martha Stewart Living Radio on Friday, April 1, to discuss emerging alternative pesticides derived from natural products and safer chemistries. The "Living Today" program is scheduled to air on the Sirius Satellite Network from 2-3 p.m. Eastern Time. Tukey will be broadcasting live from the Natural Green Turfgrass Workshop at St. Mary's Colle ...

As people across the Northern tier of the nation head out in earnest to begin the lawn and garden season, it's a good time to review one of our favorite topics: Free Lunches for the Lawn. The premise is that many common materials around the home can be turned into lawn fertilizer at no cost whatsoever. Here's a link to that post: http://www.safelawns.org/blog/index.php/2010/03/free-lunches-for-the-lawn/. He ...

What Is the Difference Between Corn Meal & Corn Gluten Meal? That's a most common question these days as the interest in alternative weed controls continues to dominate the organic lawn care banter. Here's an overview of the two distinctly different products: Both corn meal and corn gluten meal originate in the same place, with whole kernels of corn. Corn meal, the same stuff we use as a coating for food, i ...

MOFGA to Bring Organic Gardening Talks Across Maine on April 6 In a show of force that can only be called staggeringly impressive, the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association is offering more than 30 organic gardening seminars simultaneously across Maine on April 6. Find all the details here: http://www.mofga.org/Default.aspx?tabid=295. ...

Does chemical sensitivity leave you literally in fear of lawn chemicals? If so, you're not alone. Here's a blog entry from Penn State University: http://blog.pested.psu.edu/2011/03/28/living-with-chemical-hypersensitivity/ ...

Dow Chemical Sponsors Canadian Football League I've had numerous people tell me that Canadians are not as moved by celebrity as we are here in the United States. Lobbyists don't hold as much sway, the judges are not politically appointed and, in general, it's a more pure society. I would say that, at least based on my experience, all of that is generally true. A two-week old news item caught my attention to ...

Should a town or a county have the right to pass a law more restrictive than a state law when it comes to fertilizers? That's been a raging question that is heating up again in Florida this week for Scotts Miracle-Gro, just as the company is trying to bask in the glow of its public relations coup on Tuesday when it declared it would remove all phosphorus from lawn fertilizers. "The issue down here isn't pho ...