Published: Friday, Feb. 21, 2014, 6:04p.m.

Want to have the best lawn on the block come spring? Here are ideas for growing a healthy, chemical-free lawn that is gorgeous, safe, and easy-to-maintain.

Let's start by shifting our thinking from feeding the lawn to feeding the soil. Instead of dumping on chemical fertilizers that may result in a quick, temporary green, use organic-based fertilizers that slowly release their nutrients over time, resulting in month after month of green, instead of just weeks. Using fertilizers derived from natural ingredients, rather than chemicals, means you'll be feeding all the beneficial insect and microbial life into your soil. These microscopic critters break organic matter down into usable plant nutrients and, in turn, feed our plants as they were meant to be fed, slowly and evenly.

You can do this by adding an organic granular fertilizer once or twice a season or by topdressing your lawn every spring with a quarter-inch of finely screened compost spread via a pitchfork and a wheelbarrow or a drop spreader. Compost creates a nutrient-rich blanket that is available to plants for far longer than a chemical fertilizer. Another important reason to move away from chemical fertilizers: 75 percent of the nutrients in them run off into our watersheds before plants can use them, but 90 percent of the nutrients in natural, granular fertilizers stay in our soil and continue to feed our lawns for months.

The next step in growing a healthy lawn is to cut high. Leaving turf grass 3- to 4-inch-tall shades out weed seedlings and generates a good, deep root system. After all, the more surface area grass has for photosynthesis, the more energy it has to promote good root growth. Deep, healthy roots mean less irrigation and fertilization, too. You'll also want to be sure your mower is capable of recycling the clippings back into the soil via a mulching feature. Since these tiny clippings are both quick to decompose and chock full of nitrogen, with a mulching mower, you are fertilizing every time you mow.

If you want to cut down on mowing chores, you may want to consider replacing or over-seeding your existing lawn with a low- and slow-growing seed mix. Seed mixes like Pearl's Premium (www.pearlspremium.com) require mowing only three or four times a year. This particular brand is a collection of fescue varieties and newer cultivars of Kentucky bluegrass and perennial rye with slower growth rates. Other similar seed blends are produced by High Country Gardens (www.highcountrygardens.com) and Wildflower Farm (www.wildflowerfarm.com).

If weeds are presenting a challenge, know that many weed problems are the result of poor soil conditions. Get a soil test through your local extension service, and follow their recommendations to boost fertility and adjust the soil pH. Remedy poor soil conditions and promote healthy grass, and major weed outbreaks become a thing of the past. Weeds like ground ivy thrive in poorly drained, compacted soils with low fertility, so aerating and dethatching the lawn every three or four years also goes a long way toward staving off this, and other, pernicious weeds.

Horticulturist Jessica Walliser co-hosts The Organic Gardeners at 7 a.m. Sundays on KDKA Radio. She is the author of several gardening books, including Attracting Beneficial Bugs to Your Garden: A Natural Approach to Pest Control and Good Bug, Bad Bug. Her website is http://www.jessicawalliser.com.

Send your gardening or landscaping questions to tribliving@tribweb.com or The Good Earth, 503 Martindale St., 3rd Floor, D.L. Clark Building, Pittsburgh, PA 15212.

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Make your lawn the best it can be

Stockpiled snow has finally surrendered to salt and sun. Unfortunately, its retreating has exposed my shaggy dog of a lawn. If only I could send it out for a wash and a blow-dry. Long periods of snow cover can cause a myriad of lawn woes.

Many lawns weren't picture perfect going into winter. Snow is nature's airbrush; it masked the flaws but didn't really improve the lawn's condition. As snow recedes, lawns may show damage from salt, plows, voles and molds.

Salt can cause death of lawn grass or cause severe browning of grass blades, generally near sidewalks and roads. Removing any obvious salt and flushing areas with water may help. However, right now more water can cause other problems. Wait until April and reseed areas.

If plows have scraped off lawn areas, use your best puzzle skills and set sod pieces back into place now. Do a little spring dance to assure good soil contact. Sod should reroot.

A couple species of voles can inhabit your yard. Voles can make runways under the snow in lawns as they feed on grass blades and roots. Voles are well protected under the snow from hawk and owl predators. Voles may have brown to reddish-brown fur and range from 4 to 7 inches long. They have stockier bodies and shorter tails than mice. Damage is frequently mistaken as mole damage, but moles are not active during winter. Vole damage appears as surface runways or winding trails of damaged grass. Damage also occurs when my dog tries to dig out the aforementioned voles.

Once spring arrives, grass will usually grow into and fill in the surface runways; however, severe damage may require some overseeding of lawn grass in April. Voles love tall vegetation; therefore, prevent damage from occurring by continuing to mow lawns to a height of about 2 inches until grass is completely dormant in fall. Also in fall, clean up any excessive vegetation near lawns.

Check out web.extension.illinois.edu/wildlife for more information on voles and other wildlife.

Snow mold damage can also be very visible on lawns as snow recedes in spring, especially if we get a prolonged snow cover on unfrozen soil. Both gray (Typhula blight) and pink (Fusarium patch or Microdochium patch) snow mold may occur. During the wet, cold weather of early spring, snow mold may be highly visible as matted, crusty looking areas. Gray snow mold appears in roughly circular yellow to whitish-gray patches. As conditions dry out, snow mold will gradually go dormant.

Often, just leaves are affected and new grass blades grow as weather warms. Severely infected areas may remain in the form of weak or even dead turf. To repair damage, rake matted grass and reseed or resod as necessary in April.

Snow mold severity varies from year to year. Fungicides are generally not needed. Ways to avoid snow mold problems include: follow sound fertilization programs, use fertilizers containing slow-release or controlled-release nitrogen and manage thatch via aerification or removal with vertical mowing (dethatching).

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Ice Sweeps Away Docks On The Muskingum River

The Muskingum County Emergency Management Agency is keeping a close eye on the Muskingum River.

Ice broke loose on the Muskingum River Friday afternoon, tearing out docks, gazebos, trees, and other debris. EMA Director, Bo Keck, said his office has been monitoring the river ever since it froze across earlier this winter. He called what happened Friday "devastating."

"We're a little concerned about the Lorena right now. And then of course down stream, what's this gonna do going down into the Philo area," Keck explained.

So far no homes have been damaged, and as ofright now, Keck said there's not much they can do.

"We were concerned it would back up behind the bridges and of course put a lot of weight there. And now our concern is the damn here at the Y-Bridge to make sure it doesn't back up, that it just keeps going over it."

At this point, Keck said theywill continue monitoring the river.

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