Green and healthy lawn?

RockysLove

We live on over an acre in a small town area. People are not uptight with their yards for the most part, but they are still well groomed. We have not treated our yard in any way in the four years we've lived here, only mowed. I'm fine with having weeds in our yard and I understand that having just grass and no weeds is unnatural. Thing is, this season I'm not sure there is any grass at all in our front yard. It's all weeds and it looks bad. I really really don't want to do something like dump a bunch of weed and feed in our yard. What can I do to encourage grass growth and get rid of some of the weeds naturally?

jennyk213

We've been working really hard on this and things are slowly improving.  We went to a couple organic lawn care classes which were a tremendous help.  What it comes down to is it's all in the soil.  Improve that and you'll see fewer weeds.

This is our general plan:

Year 1, spring and fall: soil test, aerate, mow grass very low, apply 1/2" of composted manure to the entire lawn, apply fertilizer and soil amendments called for in the soil test, overseed.  Apply compost tea every 3 - 4 weeks.  You may want to dethatch if your yard was heavily chemically managed before.

Walked through the lawn and made a chart of where the weeds were, what types and how bad they were.  This helped as a starting point to measure progress.  It also proved useful as I read more and discovered that certain weeds indicate the soil is deficient in some way.

Year 2: spring: soil test and amendments as needed, mow low and apply compost, overseed, compost tea every 3 - 4 weeks.  Ideally, corn gluten meal in the fall but we needed to overseed instead.  We did cave and spray some of the areas of creeping charlie.  We were hesitant but the creeping charlie is seriously aggressive and we were worried it would take over the whole yard. 

Year 3: corn gluten in fall (we decided to overseed again this spring), compost tea once a month, soil test and amendments as needed.

Helpful resources:

highly recommend, will explain how to bring your lawn back, the different weeds and when/how they grow:  http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Lawn-Care-Manual-Low-Maintenance/dp/1580176496

The Chemical Free Lawn, Warren Schults

Start With The Soil, Grace Gershuny

CDMay2006

If it's really nearly all weeds, you'll need to replace the grass, right?  I would kill the weeds (if they're the sort that this would work for, and if the space is small enough) by mowing the weeds as short as your mower allows on a hot day.  Let them dry out in the sun and a couple days later, water thoroughly just before the heat of the day to kill the roots.  Mulch/pull up/etc. the remaining weeds, add compost and seed.

I should note, that i am drawing from witnessing lawns killed in this fashion... i've never actually tried it out.  Seems like it would work, though  

LolitaC

The Organic Lawn Care Manual mentioned above is excellent.