I think organic fertilizer is too expensive to buy anywhere. Go to the Organic Gardening Forum, find the FAQs, and look near the bottom of the list for some ideas on organic lawn care.

But before you get to fertilizing, there are two other things you need to be aware of for organic lawn care. Well, three since you mentioned corn gluten meal. The first is that corn gluten meal IS a fertilizer, and a pretty good one. But the real numbers 1 and 2 on my list are watering and mowing. Once you get these under control, most of your weed problems will go away.

Watering
In general water deeply and infrequently. Weed seeds need daily water to germinate. If your sprinkler system provides that you will have weed seeds sprouting all over. A better approach is to water more like once a week, but do it for a much longer time than you might do for daily watering. You can shoot for about an inch a week between you and Mother Nature. I water for 1-3 hours per week depending on the heat and humidity.

Mowing
Mulch mow as short as you can go (this only applies to bermuda, bent, and centipede grass). Golf greens in your area are likely to be a hybrid bermuda (possibly bent). They are mowed at 1/16 inch high with a reel mower. Reel mowers work very nicely with bermuda - you should consider getting one. In any case bermuda should be mowed shorter than one inch and preferably shorter than 3/4. To me the shorter the better. When you mow these grasses very close to the ground, they develop a horizontal growth habit rather than vertical. The become very dense and very soft underfoot. Dense grass is what you are shooting for with your mowing. Dense grass provides shade to any weed seeds that happen to sprout and can shade out those seedlings.

Another thing: bermuda will not grow in any shade. If you have a tree or a brick mailbox where the bermuda is getting thin on the north, east, and west sides, just forget about it filling in. Instead make a planter there for other ground covers or for flowers of some kind. Bermuda needs at least 8 hours of full sun.

Another tool that many (MANY) here find to be extremely effective, if not downright fun, is the Weed Hound. They're about $20 at garden centers and box stores. With that tool you pluck the weeds out of the ground by stepping on them.

Oh and welcome to GardenWeb.

Hey, I'm in atlanta also. If you are new to GA and bermudagrass I might be able to help. On the organic side I'm very new (green haha). In fact I've just decided to give this a try and I need to call my lawn company not to come next week.

Also, check out walterreeves.com and type in organic fertilizer into the search box, he says you can find some at pike's and another store in Atlanta.

For those on the program a while I need some help also:
1. It's too dry here to core aerate and though that is not needed once on an organic plan, right now I think it's needed as a jump start. Do I have any other options?
2. My lawn has had some white/yellow patches the past two years, i previously treated with a fungicide, what options do I have organically?

Thanks,
kevin

Here is a link that might be useful: Walter Reeves

Speaking of CGM, has anyone been told that it is illegal for the feed store to sell CGM to a customer to use as a lawn care product? (Something to do with patent infringement?)

raj 99:
Im in atlanta too, NW side and I'm just beginning to look for this stuff. Corn gluten meal I haven't found yet but I haven't tried all of the feed stores yet. I did find two feed stores with alfalfa but like you, I need to control weeds also. At this point we are too late for a lot of weeds, but, there will be more and different kinds throughout the summer. If you find CGM let me know. So far I found a place in Newnan that carries a wide variety of organic ferts, i found it online from the corn gluten meal website.

In the mean time, I've seen progress in the past two weeks just by mowing every 5 days or so rather than waiting till the weeds get taller.

It is illegal for a company to label CGM as a pre-emergent herbicide without paying a royalty to Iowa State Univ. Iowa State owns the right because they did the research work and arrived at the scientifically proven results.

They can sell you CGM feed even if you say you're going to use it as fertilizer and pre-em. A company just cannot label and profit from claiming their CGM is an organic pre-emergent without compensating Iowa State / Nick Christians.

Here is the patent -
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5030268.html

The patent expires in 2010...look for some lower priced products to come out then.

1. It's too dry here to core aerate and though that is not needed once on an organic plan, right now I think it's needed as a jump start. Do I have any other options?

Use a soaker hose set on a trickle at the faucet. Leave it on day and night for a full week and then move it about 18 inches away from that spot. I start at the highest part of my yard and work downhill. After you have finished the entire yard, repeat the entire process two more times. That should soften your soil. This works by providing a good environment in the soil for beneficial fungi to grow.

2. My lawn has had some white/yellow patches the past two years, i previously treated with a fungicide, what options do I have organically?

Apply ordinary corn meal at a rate of 20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you are worried about disease, repeat every two months.

You might look for a Weed Hound tool at your local box and garden stores. It's about $20 and worth about $40.

Question for dchall. I am north of you outside of Fort Worth. I have bermuda and st. augustine in different parts of the 1 acre yard (and alot of weeds). I am trying to get rid of the weeds. I have read to set your mower setting as high as it will mow to choke out the weeds, which I have been doing. Now you say to mow the bermuda as low as it will go? I am confused. The bermuda does not seem to spread as well when it is cut that low. I am also mowing twice a week now to try and beat the weeds. I do believe that is SLOWLY working. Thank you for any comments,Larry

Hi Larry,

The issue you face is having both St Aug & Bermuda, because you did read correctly. St Aug is to be mowed at the highest setting, it is most dense when tall. Bermuda on the other hand, becomes most dense when you mow very short. Bermuda won't do well at all in shady areas, but the St. Aug will, and the St. Aug isn't as drought resistant as bermuda. They are on two different ends of the spectrum as far as cultural practices are concerned. You should consider whether you'd like to attempt to encourage either one or the other to be the dominant turf.

Dan

Thank you for the reply Dan. My problem is I have trees where my st. augustine is, and in the areas without trees I have bermuda. I like them both. My yard would look goofy with them cut high and low. Also, my bermuda does not spread much at all with the mower set low. How low are you suppose to go? Need help!! Thanks for the reply, Larry

finally, I found this store http://www.cooperseeds.com/pages/organics/ that is only 5 minutes away from where I live. Looks like they wide variety of Organic Fertilizers. I use weed hound once in a week for couple of hours and my lawn is looking great.

Here is a link that might be useful: Organic Fertilizer

Bermuda can be mowed down to around a tenth of an inch (0.100 inches). Anything lower than 1 inch starts to improve the density of bermuda. Golf greens are mowed to about 0.15 inches. What happens when it is mowed low is the bermuda starts to grow horizontally rather than vertically. It gets a lot of stems and each stem grows a lot of blades. All the blades shade the soil.

When you mow a mix of St Aug and bermuda high, the sun loving bermuda will not get enough sunlight to really thrive. The shade tolerant St Aug does just fine when mowed high, and the wide blades will shade out the bermuda.

I just wanted to add that Bermuda is not always more drought resistant than St. Augustine. It really depends on your climate. I'm in Fl and when the temps get into the 90's I have to water my bermuda twice a week and my St. Augustine only once. It's partly due to the fact that I mow it at .75". If I let the grass go more than about 4 days straight with no precipitation during the summer, then the grass will get "baked" in certain spots (and I mean crispy, crunchy, and GRAY) I'm sure the sandy soil doesn't help keep the soil temps down either.

On the other hand because I keep my St. A at 4+ inches, the heat doesn't seem to bother it as much and it requires less water. I think the shade helps keep the soil cool.