There are many reasons not to use chemical fertilizers and pesticides.
Over time, chemical fertilizers and pesticides damage your top soil, forcing you to spend time and money applying more chemicals. In essence, your lawn and landscape becomes dependant on chemicals! We can help you break this destructive cycle and get a lawn and landscape that is green, healthy, and safe for the environment. Best of all, we can help you save money on your lawn care and landscaping expenses.
Why not use power lawn mowers?
Lawn mowers produce several types of pollutants, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, ozone precursors, and carbon dioxide.
In an hour's mowing, twenty-six different PAHs were found in the exhaust of the mowers, including 100microgrammes of benzo[a]pyrenes, which have been mentioned as a carcinogen in cigarette smoke. Other chemicals emitted include half a kilogram of carbon monoxide and several grams of methane, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxide and smoke particles.
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4.)Think of Your Soil as Alive — “Dirt” is what you track into your house. The material that grows your lawn, the soil, is alive with organisms large and small. Nurturing that life through proper use of natural materials will lead to a successful natural lawn. 5.) Mow Properly — Recycling your grass clippings by leaving them on the lawn will provide approximately half of your lawn’s fertilizer needs for the season. Keep your mower blades sharp. Depending on the species — Bermudagrass and seashore paspalum are the exceptions — lawns should be mowed no lower than 2.5 inches, even higher in the summer. 6.) Avoid Synthetic Materials — Fertilizers manufactured in a laboratory often burn lawn grasses and soils. Fertilizers and soil amendments should come from materials that were once living plants or animals, or mined minerals such as lime or sulfur.
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1) The
2) According to numerous studies by the Soil Food Web laboratory, soils treated with synthetic fertilizers and pesticides have 75 to 80 percent less microbial activity than soils managed in natural or organic programs and 50 percent less microbial activity than soils left unmanaged.
1) In 2001 the Environmental Protection Agency completed a nationwide survey of pesticides in wells that provide drinking water. It showed that more than half of the 94,000 community water system wells and rural wells tested contained nitrates. Nearly 15 percent of residential wells contained lawn pesticides.
2) The EPA estimates that homeowners and municipalities use up to two-third of available drinking water on lawn watering during peak times of the growing season.
3) Water has to be pumped great distances, especially out West. The city of
4) A recent test on
5) NASA scientists estimate that fertilizer and pesticide runoff from lawns contribute up to 20 percent of the Dead Zone at the mouth of the Mississippi River in the Gulf of Mexico, which is an area the size of
1) The EPA estimates that the amount of pollution emitted by a lawn mower operating for one hour equals the amount of pollution emitted by a car driven for about 360 miles (One average hour of lawn mower use produces emissions of: 353 grams (0.78 lb) volatile organic compounds; 1038 g (2.3 lb) carbon monoxide; 0.68 g (0.002 lb) nitrous oxide; and 1950 g (4.3 lb) carbon dioxide).
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3) Lawn mowers and other gas-powered lawn care equipment contribute 10 percent of the nation’s air pollution, according to the EPA.
4) The EPA estimates that only 2 percent of pesticides actually reach the target pest; the remainder volatizes in the air, hits unintended targets, or seeps into groundwater.
1) The vast majority of lawn care chemicals currently on the market have not been fully tested for their long-term effects on the environment.
2) EPA approval of a lawn care product is in no way a finding of product safety.
3) Widespread medical consensus concludes that lawn pesticides are not safe to apply around young children. The Journal of Public Health reported that children who live in homes where weed and insect killers are used are 4 to 5 times more likely to develop cancer.
4) A Purdue study showed that dogs are far more likely to get certain kinds of cancers when exposed to lawn chemicals.
5) A Defenders of Wildlife study showed that of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides: 16 are toxic to birds, 24 are toxic to fish and aquatic organisms and 11 are deadly to bees.
6) The National Cancer Institute reported that lawn care professionals are three to seven times more likely to acquire non-Hodgkins lymphoma than the national average.
7) The NCI also showed that lawn pesticide applicators are 2 to 3 times as likely to suffer prostate cancer.
8) A study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine showed that golf course superintendents are twice as likely to suffer brain cancer, while non-Hodgkin's lymphoma also occurred at over twice the national average. Prostate cancer occurred at nearly 3 times the national average and large intestinal cancer occurred at 1.75 times the national average.
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10) Numerous studies, including one at
11) The National Academy of Sciences reports that at least one out of seven people are significantly harmed by pesticide exposure each year with symptoms ranging from headaches, nausea and fever, to breathing difficulties, seizures, eye pains, vomiting, cramps and diarrhea. Long-term consequences include lowered fertility, birth defects, miscarriages, blindness, liver and kidney dysfunction, neurological damage, heart trouble, stroke, immune system disorders, menstrual problems, memory loss, suicidal depression, cancer and death.
12) Low-dose exposures to agricultural and lawn care pesticides may cause injury to developing embryos before a pregnancy is even noticed, according to a study conducted by researchers at Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation, and being published in the May 2004 issue of Environmental Health Perspectives.
13) The U.S. General Accounting Office has told Congress on several occasions that the public is misled on pesticide safety by statements characterizing pesticides as “safe” or “harmless.” EPA states that no pesticide is 100 percent safe.
1) Lawns cover between 30 and 50 million acres in the
2) The average American homeowner spends 40 hours per year mowing the lawn.
3) Of 103.9 million households with lawns, more than half (58 million) use insecticides; 40 million use herbicides; 14 million use fungicides.
4) The average size of the home lawn is one third of an acre.
5) Nearly 20 million pieces of motorized lawn & gardening equipment are now sold each year, with more than 100 million currently in use.
6) Americans apply approximately 80 million tons of synthetic lawn fertilizers per year.
7) The
8) A one-acre lawn generates almost six tons of grass clippings a year, or nearly 1,000 garbage bags full. As a result, most existing legal landfills are estimated to be full by 2010 according to a study conducted by the U.S. Congress.
9) The average 40-pound bag of synthetic lawn fertilizer, with 30 percent nitrogen by weight, required the fossil fuel equivalent of 3 gallons of gasoline during manufacturing and shipping.
10) Homeowners contribute significantly to the nearly 60 million pounds of glyphosate (Roundup) applications each year; the compound has been linked to numerous health and environmental risks.
11) Counting fertilizer production and distribution, along with fuel used in mowing, trimming and pumping water, the nation utilizes approximately 2.2 billion gallons of fuel per year, or 18 gallons per year.
12) Homeowners apply approximately 80 million pounds of pesticides on lawns per year.
13) Studies by the New York Board of Pesticide Control showed that 8 of 10 people do not read Caution, Warning and Danger labels on pesticide products.
14) A 2004 national survey by the National Gardening Association reveals that 5 million homeowners use only organic lawn practices and products and 35 million people use both organic and synthetic materials.
Actively Aerated Compost Tea
This technique is courtesy of Elaine Ingham, Ph.D., a noted soil ecologist, author, and the founder of Soil Foodweb, an international group of soil biology laboratories.
What you'll need:
1. Attach one end of a piece of tubing to the pump and the other end to the gang valve.
2. Connect a bubbler to each of the three ports on the gang valve with tubing.
3. For adequate aeration, weight or tape down the bubblers so that they sit on the bottom of the bucket. Clean the weights, or replace tape, with each batch.
4. Fill the bucket with 4 gallons of water, leaving enough space on top so the water can bubble without spilling. Aerate municipal water before adding compost until you can't smell any chlorine.
5. Add the compost. If you plan on using the tea in a sprayer, place the compost in a mesh bag with several fish floats or Ping-Pong balls so it will tumble at the surface.
6. To feed the microorganisms, add 1 to 5 teaspoons microbial food. More food will be needed in cold temperatures, less when it is very warm.
7. Stir vigorously a few times daily to shake free as many organisms as possible and to increase aeration. Reposition the bubblers after stirring so they're well spaced.
After brewing
