Products Could — and Should — Be Safe Enough for Kids to Apply! ...

BOULDER, CO. — Showcasing what is likely the largest compost tea project of its kind anywhere in the nation on Thursday, Oct. 4, the lead turfgrass manager at the University of Colorado offered a behind-the-scenes look at what makes his 70-plus acres of grass truly green. The compost tea, a biologically active liquid — that some in academia claim is just brown water — is sprayed through the entire campus sp ...

This handy tool helps save time during the applications of liquid fertilizers and compost teas. ...

In the northern half of the nation, the days are still warm, the nights are cool and Mother Nature usually provides plenty of rain. The humidity drops, biting insects take a break and garden centers start putting many products on sale. ...

[caption id="attachment_5244" align="alignleft" width="540" caption="Keeping the grass tall helps the lawn outcompete the weeds. (Phil Nauta photo)"][/caption] By Phil Nauta If you'd like a lawn that's mostly weed free, I'm here to tell you that with a little bit of knowledge and commitment, it's definitely possible. Now we do have to remember that a lawn with just a few species of grasses is quite an unnat ...

[caption id="attachment_4368" align="alignleft" width="547" caption="On Day 2 of the Mid-Atlantic tour an organic landscape roundtable discussion hosted by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society included PHS project managers Mark Paronish and Julie Snell, along with SafeLawns founder Paul Tukey, Glenstone horticulturist Patricia Manke and organic lawn guru Barry Draycott of New Jersey."][/caption] I just re ...

Just back from a soil biology training session with one of the country's leading experts, Paul Wagner, at the Soil Food Web on Long Island, I remain in awe of the world's smallest creatures. These are the bacteria, protozoa, nematodes etc. that make our life on the planet possible. Healthy soil, ironically, can probably best be described as a war zone. Everything down there is eating everything else. And wh ...

Compost tea is one of the oldest, yet most misunderstood, tools for the organic gardener — whether professional or amateur. The Northeast Organic Farmers Association will hold a day-long seminar "Producing and Applying Actively Aerated Compost Tea" open to the public on Sept. 21 beginning at 9 a.m. at Stonewall Farm, Keene, N.H. Here's the official invite from NOFA: Join us for a hands-on workshop on Produc ...

[caption id="attachment_1626" align="alignnone" width="237" caption="Commercial tea brewers are available from a variety of sources."][/caption] Applications of compost "tea" have been around as long as gardening has been around. Long before science proved the efficacy of compost tea, our forebears just instinctively knew that the substance — biologically active liquid — would have beneficial results in the ...

Adrian Higgins, the gardening writer for the Washington Post, has been a good friend to SafeLawns in the past four years — including this rather epic front-page article back in 2007: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/19/AR2007091900472.html. In today's Post, Adrian, a devout organic gardener himself, tackles the age-old question of whether or not compost tea works: http://www.wash ...