Dandelions. Are they the nemesis of your yard or bright little spots of sunshine in an otherwise bland expanse of green?
I used to loathe dandelions. Well, last week I did. This week I've had a complete change of heart.
I had decided that this summer, I was going to have the most beautiful back yard for my Pickle to play on. Completely soft and weed-free.
I bought the fertilizer. I bought the weed poison. I was armed and ready. Then I received my first issue of Organic Gardening. It had an article on organic lawn care . . .
I thought I'd give it a read in order to know what to do once I had that lush, green, chemically induced weed-free lawn I was wishing for. As it turns out, unless I want to greatly increase the risk of things like breast cancer, miscarriage and a host of other diseases that have been linked to 2, 4-D (the chemical in that weed killer) and unless I want to continue contaminating our water supply and killing lots of innocent little microbes and fishies I have to QUIT using those chemicals! The article states that American homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides per acre of lawn than farmers use on an acre of crops. Yikes! Try this article to read about organic lawn maintenance and see if you can quit too.
To sum it up:
I returned the fertilizer and the weed killer.
I bought new grass seed and compost to try choking out the weeds and build a more dense turf.
I decided to embrace dandelions.
What about you? How does your garden, lawn etc. grow?
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