Lost in Lawn Care II

Following up on a previous post, I have been digging deeper into the organic lawn care world.  I would say that, so far, my experiments in organic lawn care have been a success.  A few months ago, my lawn looked like a war zone.  Now about 2/3 of the lawn is green and looks pretty healthy.

However, I'm running into some issues with organic fertilizer.  The first round I used Milorganite, which is some type of treated sewage sludge.  Next, I used a Scotts organic product.  This week, I tried soybean meal on the suggestion of others who have used it as a cheap organic fertilizer.

The issue for me is sustainability.  It struck me after I bought the soybean meal how unsustainable a process this was.  Here I'm buying soybean meal, which probably wasn't created in a sustainable way, to feed my lawn, which in itself isn't that natural of a concept.  I know some people go all the way with permaculture, but here I'm just looking at a more sustainable way of having a lawn.

There has to be a better way, and my guess is the answer involves compost in some way.  If you look at how plants grow in nature, a lot of the growth is fueled by compost.  I've read where some people have tried to maintain a lawn on compost alone with no fertilizer.  It seems tricky, as there are only a handful who are doing it.  But if you can do it, it is a much more sustainable process as you are using a natural input versus a human-made one.

We'll see if it works!