Chalk up a victory for just saying no. When Debra McCormack heard that a pesticide known to cause all sorts of health maladies was going to be sprayed on her local golf course, she stood up. Remarkably, the manufacturer caved. The pesticide, Curfew, has long been sanctioned by state and federal regulators and previous attempts to get city and county officials to ban its use had failed. The manufacturer, Dow ...

If you've shopped at a garden center lately, you know you couldn’t walk past more than three aisles without some aspect of organics screaming out for attention. Whether it’s composts, fertilizers, wetting agents, or mycorrhizal fungi, a whole new generation of products is on the cusp of transforming the green industry. One of the most compelling bits of news concerning organics in recent years has come out ...

A new research technique employed by the U.S. Geological Survey recently traced water contamination on Long Island in New York to excess fertilization. Though much of the problem is currently assumed to be related to agriculture, the new study offers further proof that overuse of certain high nitrogen fertilizers can have long-term negative effects on soils and water supplies. OrganicConsumers.org recently ...

I have believed in the perils of lawn pesticides ever since they made me sick back in the 1990s. I've been ranting about them ever since. It's reassuring when experts in the medical field chime in with their own advice, such as this article by Dr. Alan Greene, the featured pediatrician in our movie, A Chemical Reaction: http://www.ecomii.com/parenting/lawns ...

For about a month's worth of organic lawn care tips from SafeLawns.org, visit the prominent national web site TheDailyGreen: http://www.thedailygreen.com/green-homes/eco-friendly/organic-lawn-care-tips-47071704. We appreciated this great forum to get this important information out there. ...

Having received more than 12,000 comments from concerned citizens, the Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday it will begin reviewing the pesticide responsible for Colony Collapse Disorder of bees. As one of the first organizations in the U.S. to begin tracking this story, SafeLawns.org has long concluded that a synthetic nicotine known as imidacloprid — used to kill grubs on lawns — is respons ...

I heard about a movie that was going to sweep the nation off its collective feet a couple of years ago from an excitable radio host who specializes in pet care. In a perfect world, every pet owner in America would watch "The Truth About Cats, Dogs & Lawn Chemicals" and immediately forsake their Turf Builder Plus 2 and Roundup forever. This isn't a perfect world, of course, and the movie has been viewed ...

Issues dealing with vegetable production are not the normal fodder for this blog, but given that the number one question I'm getting from media callers these days concerns late blight, I want to weigh in with a couple of web sites. Late blight is a fungal disease that has been rampant on the Eastern Seaboard this year due to the cool temperatures and moist conditions. The same blight that caused the irish p ...

Check out these two articles that appeared in the national media today: http://www.turfmagazine.com/article.php?id=3547 http://www.grist.org/article/2009-07-13-green-lawn-care-electric-mowers/ ...

Here is an article, as promised in my weekly update to SafeLawns members, about a research project related to dogs and pesticides: Leading Animal Researcher Warns of Lawn Chemical Risks As professor of epidemiology and environmental medicine at Purdue University’s internationally renowned School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Lawrence Glickman is one of the world’s leading experts on dogs and their diseases. H ...