California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s (DPR) “Top 10 Pesticide Blunders” was released as part of National Poison Prevention Week. The agency reminds everyone how to avoid illness and injury by selecting household cleaning and gardening products that pose the least risk to their health and the environment and to follow label instructions. It's clear some folks just don't take these products seriousl ...

Rep. Mary Nelson (D-Falmouth) just announced today that the initial public hearing for her proposed legislation to protect schoolchildren from synthetic chemical lawn pesticides will be held Thursday, April 7, at 1:00 p.m. in Room 206 of the Cross Building in Augusta, Maine. Mark your calendars and please plan to attend. Here is the full wording of the bill: An Act To Protect Children's Health and Promote S ...

[caption id="attachment_3032" align="alignleft" width="563" caption="Below a pH of 6.5 phosphorus is not optimally available in soil. "][/caption] YESTERDAY'S ANNOUNCEMENT from Scotts Miracle-Gro that it will remove phosphorus from all of its synthetic chemical fertilizers in the United States has brought a flurry of media calls asking us to explain what that will mean to the health of American lawns. The c ...

The Move is Eyed Suspiciously by Organic Fertilizer Companies After arguing for much of the past two decades that lawn fertilizer had little to do with excess phosphorus in the watershed, the Scotts Miracle-Gro company announced Monday it will succumb to increasing public pressure and remove phosphorus from all its U.S. lawn fertilizers by 2012. Miracle-Gro founder Horace Hagedorn lived by the marketing cre ...

ST. MARY'S CITY, MARYLAND — An international panel of lawn care innovators will gather together for the first Natural Green Turfgrass Workshop presented by the Maryland Turfgrass Association and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. In the midst of pending regional and national legislation involving nutrient reduction in lawn fertilizers, as well as bans of synthetic chemical pesticides in several states and Cana ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 3/22/2011 (Contact: Patti Moore at the Canadian Cancer Society at 1-800-656-6426 or at pmoore@bc.cancer.ca.) American Lawn Activist to Return to Canada Appearances to Mark 20th Anniversary of First Pesticide Ban EDMONTON, ALBERTA — With the bans of synthetic lawn and garden pesticides continuing to sweep across Canada, yet still facing opposition in some regions, North America’s leadin ...

Here's a great article published in the Harvard Magazine about the natural lawn care movement: http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/03/when-grass-isnt-greener. ...

Having been touring through the South in the past nine days, I'll be back in Maine by Sunday afternoon for a presentation at the Lincoln County Home & Garden Show at 1 p.m.: http://www.clcymca.org/2011_Home_and_Garden_Show.html. Come armed with all of your spring lawn and garden questions and we'll also hold a signing of the book, The Organic Lawn Care Manual. And speaking of Maine, I'll also be in my home ...

Although we released the news a few weeks ago, EcoSMART issued its own national press release yesterday about the company joining our movement: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110316005146/en/EcoSMART-Technologies-Joins-SafeLawns-Movement. Our first big event together will be June 4 in Seattle at the Northwest Lawn & Garden Pesticide Summit. ...

How much fertilizer to apply confounds many people; most gardeners simply guess. In the same way experienced chefs can develop a sense for how much of a spice to add to a recipe, gardeners do develop the ability to know if a plant needs a smidgeon, a handful or a shovelful. For the rest of us, though, it’s safest and best to follow directions on the package, or the results of a soil test from your local Coo ...