First, organic will be more cost more, with likely more applications. That aside I love organic when I can use it.

Then, the reason I wouldn't be a fan of Scotts program is because it is something that tries to take care of grass anywhere in the nation when in reality needs of turf change a lot based off of location. Some turf needs more things then other turf. For example, if you have a beautiful lawn with a privacy fence around all of it, you will have minimal problems with weeds and very little need for weed killer, but if you have a lawn that borders a field that never gets cut but just tries to inundate your lawn with weeds, you will need more weed killer.

But the bottom line is - if you get the results out of it that you like, and you don't mind paying the price, it sounds like a great plan!

Just my thoughts

I disagree that organics cost more over the course of a season. When you start with the Scott's 4-step and add in specialized herbicides, insecticides, and possible fungicides, the organic approach will be less expensive. In any case we are talking about similar costs within a few cents per 1,000 square feet per season. Where the extreme expense comes in is when you use compost on a lawn. Compost costs as much as $75 per 1,000 square feet per application. Normal fertilizer (synthetic or organic) costs less than $5 per 1,000 square feet. I blame the "Rodalians" and their "compost is king" approach to organic gardening for the genesis of the myth that organic gardening is expensive.

Where do you get organic fertilizer for $5 per 1,000 square feet? Not at the garden stores or nurseries. If you look at the ingredients of any organic fertilizer you will find them to contain corn, wheat, alfalfa, soy, feathers, meat byproducts, cottonseed, and any of a number of ground up grains, nuts, beans, and seeds. I submit that if you go to your local feed store (they are everywhere once you Google them) you will be able to buy one or more of these raw materials in a 50-pound sack for under $12. When I first started this in 2002 I could get corn meal for under $3. This year corn is more like $15, so I have switched to alfalfa at $12. The application rate is 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. You can apply more and get much better results.

And speaking of much better results, here is a picture of a lawn in SE Pennsylvania. Owner goes by morpheuspa on the Internet lawn forums.

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He uses more than 1,000 pounds per 1,000 square feet or organic fertilizers over the course of a season. So he takes his lawn hobby a little more seriously than most of us, but the point is this. His lawn is Elite KBG. Everyone knows that KBG goes dormant in the winter. The picture was taken on April 11 this year. No, his grass was not the first to green up. His lawn remained green all winter.

Can you attribute that performance 100% to organics? Well not quite. He also has his soil tested all the time and maintains the micronutrients to a level that most of us do not. He also applies a heavy dose of synthetic nitrogen as a winterizer in the late fall. So while he is not completely organic, it would be tough to argue that organics do not play an important part in the performance of his lawn.

wow! that's a beautiful lawn! plus, thanks for the tips on the organic stuff too - i like that.

I use a mixed program. I'm not an organic purist. I use Dimension or similar pre-emergent in September and March. I use organic fertilizers purchased at a feed store on my 4000 sq ft back yard. I alternate between CGM, cotton seed meal, and alfalfa. For my 7500 sq ft front lawn, I continue to use chemical ferts.

I have a nitrogen hungry Tif419 bermuda lawn so I apply 50 to 100 lbs monthly at a cost of $12 to $25.

Here's a few pics of my back yard taken a couple of years ago. Everything looks the same except my son finally reclaimed his large black lab so the big yellow spots are gone. The yellowish color you see in the close up is freshly applied CGM.

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Shot at 2005-07-13

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Shot at 2005-07-13

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Shot at 2005-07-13

Whoooo'sss the cuuute little doggie leaving the yellow spots? YOU ARE! You are such a cutie!!

So David. Were you on a heavy organic program in the back when the yellow spots occurred? There is no agenda here. I'm just trying to understand your situation and learn something. Most commonly the dog spots do not occur when the fertility is high - either from chemical or organic fertilizer. Yellow spots are a symptom of the need for more nitrogen. They usually do not appear on organic lawns because the microbial activity is high enough to provide adequate bacteria to absorb the urine.

Yes, David, I was on an organic fertilizer program at the time. I still am and I still get a few of the brown spots. The large spots disappeared when the female lab was reclaimed by my son. Right now, I only get very small spots, which tells me that the poodle is the problem. I still have the mixed breed black dog seen in the pics.

The spots seem to take forever to repair themselves. I've tried sprinkling sugar on them in the past but it didn't seem to help. This year, I've been keeping a constant supply of compost tea brewing. I think it helps on those spots as they seem to recover faster with the tea.

Oh, and I'm not worried about any agendas. I'm firmly converted to organic fertilization. I got a little lazy last year and tried synthetics again for the first time in 5 or 6 years. I was not happy with the results.

Thank you. When a treatment I swear works does not work, I like to know about it. I think I intimidate a lot of people into not challenging me when something does not work. I would much rather get the feedback. Mind if I ask a few more questions to see what I can do to improve? These forums is where I learn most of this stuff, so anything you can to do to help will help the next guy/gal.

How much sugar did you use on the spots. My suggestion is a heaping handful.

What fertilizer were you using and how often?

Otherwise your lawn looks pretty darned nice!

and to the OP, if you have not gotten a satisfactory answer, please stop us. We are going off on a new tangent for awhile ;-)

David, you'll notice that I said that I "sprinkled" sugar. That's not the same as a "heaping handful". Maybe I didn't use enough sugar. The next new spot that appears will get a heaping handful to see what happens.

I'm using molasses in the compost tea to feed the microherd. Maybe it's the molasses that's helping to repair those spots??

I generally fertilize monthly. I may go 5 weeks sometimes as I don't have a set schedule. As you know, Bermuda is a nitrogen hog and organic fertilizers don't give quick shots of nitrogen. I try to watch the lawn and make sure that I fertilize before it starts showing a nitrogen deficiency.

I use a lot of CGM and cotton seed meal. CGM is used because of the higher protein. Cotton seed meal is also pretty high in protein and, living in North Texas, there's a lot of cotton grown here. I occasionally use soy bean meal but it's more expensive and not always in stock. Once in a while I'll use alfalfa or Milorganite. Never more than once per season, though. Alfalfa is lower in protein and I've never been real comfortable with Milorganite. I like to use a few different fertilizers on the belief (perhaps mistaken) that a variety is more likely to provide all the needed micronutrients.

When I first joined this forum years ago, there was a raging debate going between organic and chemical fertilizer proponents. Some were saying that organic fertilizers couldn't sustain the nitrogen needs of a high quality Bermuda lawn. I decided to find out for myself. I think I've proven that it can be done.

Is there an orgranic program I can use that's as easy as Scott's.

I really don't understand what and when you're buying things from your local feed store and how many pounds per sq, ft. I just like it to tell me the number to put on my spreader.

I would LOVE to use all ORGANIC, I just need it made easy, My grass is very nice, but during the season I start getting some clover, which really bothers me and by the end of the season, some crabgrass in places too.

I'm in Chicago, IL and have been using Scott's 4 Step program for years.

Thanks for any help you can give me.

Hello latte194. When you say, "as easy Scott's," I'd like to remind you that no matter how you fertilize and take care of pests, most of the work goes into watering and mowing (and dethatching and core aerating). Fertilizing almost always needs to be done, but that's not most of the work. So here's a plan FOR YOU IN CHICAGO, not for folks in the PNW or in Phoenix or, really, elsewhere.

Water - deeply and infrequently.

Mow - mulch mow at your mower's highest setting every week.

Fertilize - first in late May, second in early September, and last in late November.

Weed control - Preemergent in early January and late March. Preemergent again in September.

Weed control - Spot spray actively growing weeds in mid April and mid September using something like Weed-b-Gon or Weed-b-Gon Chickweed, Clover, and Oxalis Killer.

That would be the plan for either chemical or organic fertilizer. There are no good organic weed killers that do not harm normal turfgrasses. No, corn gluten meal does not work.

I like to use alfalfa pellets (rabbit chow) on the lawn. I apply at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet (also 2 pounds per 100 square feet). I apply by filling a 2-pound coffee can with the pellets and then eyeballing a 10-ft by 10-ft area on the lawn. I scatter the contents of the can over that 100-square-ft area by hand, refill the can, and move to the next 10x10-ft area. I get the alfalfa pellets at a feed store in a brown, 50-pound, bag. It's generic. After you apply these you must moisten them so they swell up and expand. The next day you can drag a hose across the area and the flakes of alfalfa will fall down into the canopy of the turf and begin to decompose.

Insect control - you should not need insect control on an organic fertilizer program. The reason organic fertilizers work is the microbes in the soil feed on the organic fertilizer and create plant food. This is the start of a food cycle so complicated that it's referred to as the soil food web. Everything which is beneficial seems to benefit from the regular feeding of organic fertilizer. The ecosystem full of beneficial microbes seems to out compete the disease causing pathogens except in rare cases. Thus the need for insect control is very rare. So the need for the insect control portion of Scott's 4-step program is eliminated.

Weed control as I have described may seem more complicated than the Scott's program. One big benefit of spot spraying versus broadcasting the Scott's product(s) is that you don't waste product on areas where there are no weeds. The preemergents must be applied over the large area, because you don't know where the weed seeds are, but the spot spraying of the living weeds makes my methods more efficient.

I feel like I'm leaving a lot out, but lawn care is not that hard once you have the basics of watering, mowing, and fertilizing. Nearly all the other stuff has an organic solution. If you are watering and fertilizing correctly you should not have a thatch problem. If you think you have hard soil, you can spray it with shampoo (3 ounces per 1,000 square feet) to soften it.

Thanks for all of that, I appreciate it. I do mow high and water deeply. I bought a dethathcher a few years ago and did it and do core aerate. I actually do it all manually with one of those things you step on and get two plugs at once. It seems like a lot of work, but I like it. I know where the ground is hard and needs it more often.

You're still saying to fertilize three times. What do you use? What are the rabbit pellets for?

I don't mind work, I spend hours and hours in my yard. By easy I mean, I need exactly what to use when and how much if I switched from Scott's Step 4 to organic. I'd like an organic product that works that I could put on at certain times too.

Thanks again.

Good questions. There's a little bit of background that I'll try to summarize.

WARNING: Sciency discussion coming.

That soil food web I mentioned previously involves at least 35,000 species of microbes living in the soil. There are bacteria, fungi, micro arthropods (insects), yeasts, nematodes, and other invisible critters living in the soil. When people talk about unhealthy soil, they are talking about the beneficial microbes being out of balance with the pathogenic microbes which cause disease. When the beneficial are well fed and watered, they will dominate the microbial balance which results in healthy soil. The food web process goes something like this: the surface level microbes eat food that drops to the surface of the soil. That food is the normal waste products from birds, mammals, fish, etc. So we're talking about animal poop, pee, feathers, scales, and skin, but also when an animal dies, you can add blood to the waste products falling on the ground. On the plant side, waste materials include stems, grass blades, branches, dead roots, flowers, seeds, nuts, beans, etc. When those things hit the ground, Mother Nature's food web kicks into action. The surface dwelling microbes begin to decompose the waste. Then the waste from the surface microbes gets added to the mix and other varieties of microbes, which specialize in surface microbe waste decomposition kick into action. This process goes on upwards and downwards in the soil in such a confusing tangle that it's called a food web instead of a food chain. Ultimately, after about 3 weeks of microbial processing, the microbes produce a chemical plant food much like you can buy in bags at the hardware store and nurseries. Now, if you look at a bag of organic fertilizer, you'll find that it contains ground up nuts, beans, seeds, and animal byproducts. So organic fertilizers are a handy way of feeding the soil food web. Apply at the surface and the soil knows what to do with it.

END sciency discussion.

As a demonstration that this process does, actually, work, I have photo evidence. Here is a picture taken by a former member of this forum, mrmumbles. He dropped a handful of alfalfa pellets onto his zoysia lawn in mid May and took a picture of it in mid June.

You can clearly see the improved growth, color, and grass density after 3-4 weeks of microbe processing the alfalfa pellets.

So with that as a background, the simple answer to what the alfalfa pellets do is that they feed the beneficial soil microbes which, in turn, feed the grass roots.