Hippo @ Zoo

Hippo @ Zoo

Thursday, June 17, 2010

How to grow fertilizer!



Yes, the title is odd, but accurate.
I was reading a book earlier, The Organic Lawn Care Manual, and the author had written about how, 50 years ago, white clover was a desirable plant to have in your lawn. To the point that people would mix clover seed into their grass seed when starting a lawn.
We consider it to be a weed because Scotts came out with a "weed-and-feed" that killed clover. The only way to justify the product was to list clover as a nuisance.

Interesting to see how a company can change the mind of the public in order to sell a product....

Anyway, besides being "pretty", the old-schoolers knew that clover was a "nitrogen fixer" (interesting write up here), meaning it pulls nitrogen from the air and deposits it on the plant's roots. Nitrogen is the primary nutrient that causes grass to grow thick & dark. It is also 78% of our air.
Oh snap! Free fertilizer!

Poking around online, you'll see with a lawn of 10% clover, the "weed" will add enough nitrogen to the ground that you will never have to fertilize the lawn. And it is organic nitrogen. And it's free.
Why was I paying $30 a bag before....?
This is the $12 bag that will make my entire lawn fertilize itself. Heck yeah. As always, I'll post the results.

3 comments:

  1. hmmm very interesting maybe once I have a yard of my own I can try this bad boy out. But if I am anything like the rest of the Farrills I will not have a green thumb and I am sure my yard will still have patches of dirt.

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  2. awesome!!! I can't wait to see the results!!!

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  3. Hmm...if it's good, I'll pass it off to my parents.

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