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brian_bridgeport_ct

Starting new lawn - is it really this cheap/easy to go organic?

I've been lurking on this site for a few days and pouring through google, and want to see if i have this straight...

first, what i have to work with: i've owned my home for 3 years now, and all i've done was have a guy cut it (and not too high, i know about that). about 1/4 acre of lawn. the previous owner(s) i dont think ever did anything to the lawn, or at least not in recent memory - it is full of weeds and after some construction i did last year, there are even more barespots than ever. just raked yesterday, and there's almost nothing there in many places.

anyway, my goal is a lawn i can at least walk barefoot in and not have stiff weeks poking my soles or walking on dirt. i was going to go with the typical scotts 4-step program but it's killing my conscience, though the price is attractive.

so, seeing as i'm starting more or less from scratch (and april first is a few days away and little green patches are only just starting), here are the steps i forsee:

1) get a test kit for the soil, which will probably tell me what i am already guessing - it's nutritionally deficient, and grass likes nitrogen, so...

2) lay down some alfalfa pellets, water them in, and wait 2-3 weeks for the soil to rehab a bit. corn gluten is a fertilizer and seed blocker, from what i understand (as is corn meal?) so not good for a starting lawn. so alfalfa is safe and probably much cheaper than soybean meal.

3) plant grass seed liberally. water in the mornings. don't drown it.

4) once it sprouts, maybe give it another fertilizing, or at least by midsummer, with more alfalfa. or compost. keep watering, deeply when i can, to get the roots deeper. cut grass, leave clippings.

5) next spring, spread corn gluten or corn meal to inhibit weeds and fert the grass. lather, rinse, repeat as necessary.

Is it really that cheap & easy??? It doesn't even sound expensive, especially since we have a lot of horse people in the surrounding towns and i can probably get alfalfa pellets and corn meal as feed cheap.

I don't have a lot of money, but want to do the right thing. HELP! :)

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