Is your lawn making your family sick?

Every time you turn around, there’s another study confirming the dangers of chemical pesticides. But what you don’t hear about is the fact that the ultra-potent ingredients in nonorganic fertilizers can also cause major health problems.

So do yourself and everyone else on the planet a big favor: Trade those “pseudo-foods” in for a healthier natural diet for your lawn. Here’s why:

• The nitrogen in chemical fertilizers is generally processed from ammonia, which is harsh on its own. What’s much worse, though, is that to make slow-release lawn fertilizers, the ammonia is mixed with other ingredients — some of which are being fingered as possible carcinogens. And all of that crud gets tracked into your house on the shoes (or paws) of anyone who has walked on chemically fertilized turf.
• Studies have shown that airborne and waterborne nitrogen from fertilizers may cause respiratory ailments, cardiac disease, and cancer.
• Runoff from manmade fertilizers contains heavy metal, fluoride, radon, and other radioactive components. And it all goes into your drinking water.
• Using synthetic lawn fertilizer isn’t doing your grass any favors, either — it can actually hinder plant growth by depleting the other nutrients and minerals that all plants, including turf grasses, need to grow strong and healthy enough to fend off pests and diseases.

There are plenty of organic lawn fertilizers on the market that will enable you to maintain a great-looking lawn without putting your health at risk. But you can accomplish the same feat in either of these simple (and cheaper) ways:

Use my Super-Safe Lawn Fertilizer

It’ll provide all of the nutrients your turf needs, with none of the dangers of synthetic lawn foods. Mix 2 parts alfalfa meal, 1 part bonemeal, and 1 part wood ashes together, and apply the mixture at a rate of 25 pounds per 1,000 square feet of lawn area first thing in the spring, and last thing in the fall.

Add a layer of top-quality compost

Spread this across the turf twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. If you want to try this approach, you’ll need a minimum of 50 pounds of compost for each 1,000 square feet of lawn area. As for the maximum, well, the sky’s the limit — there’s no such thing as an overdose of black gold!